Payment Card Industry (PCI) is mandated by credit card companies to help ensure the security of transactions. This is not a law, but mandated by the contracts that the merchants sign with credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) and the banks that handle the payment processing.  

Important Dates

• October 19, 2019: All merchants in the USA, Canada, and Latin America must send credit return authorization messages on Visa transactions.
• April 14, 2020: Issuers will be entitled to initiate charge backs on return transactions when the merchant fails to obtain an authorization for Visa transactions. The issuer holds liability for an authorized return submitted for settlement. The merchant holds liability for an unauthorized return submitted for settlement. Merchants need to ensure their POS will authorize returns.
• July 2020: All merchants in the USA, Canada, and Latin America must send credit return authorization messages on MasterCard and Discover transactions.
• July 1, 2020: Return / Refund Visa transactions will be included in the Zero-Floor Limit and Authorization Misuse Process Integrity Fee Assessment. Unauthorized returns submitted for settlement will be reported as a Zero-Floor Limit non-compliance transaction. Authorized returns not submitted for settlement and are not reversed will be reported as Visa authorization Misuse non-compliance and merchants may notice higher fees on their merchant statement.
• July 17, 2020: Issuers may initiate a late presentment charge back for a MasterCard refund transaction submitted after the refund transaction presentment time (5 Days)  

In 2020, an RFP was released June 22, 2020 with a due date of August 2020.  

• Funds must go directly to each community and technical college Bank. Merchant fees would go to the vendor. Each college can collect the convenience fees and send them to the vendor or the convenience fees may also go to the vendor.
  
• Solution must be a validated payment application (PA/DSS) approved by the PCI council.
  
• The application must provide a solution for online stores outside of regular tuition and fee payments.
  
• Ability to exclude certain types of payments from a convenience fee.
  
• Integration with the Campus Solutions pillar of PeopleSoft and prefer that the vendor is a certified partner.
  
• Accommodate unlimited merchant ID’s and depository banks.
• Ability to accept international payments.
  
• Solution to processes refunds.
  
• Solution to processes charge-backs.
  
• Describe how rejected ACH transactions work. How are the accounts adjusted?
  
• Does the solution have the ability to determine which stores do and do not assess a convenience fee?
  
• The State Board for Community and Technical Colleges is expected to participate in the state’s mandatory use contract for Merchant Bankcard Services, administered by the Office of the State Treasurer. The current agreement is with Key Bank Merchant Services. Vendor must be able to adhere to the following requirements:
  
  • Must be fully PCI DSS compliant.
    
  • Must be able to use Key Bank merchant accounts (Merchant IDs) issued through the Office of the State Treasurer. These MIDs and any associated hierarchy numbers including but not limited to Terminal IDs will be setup in the tax id of each participating college.
    
  • Must be fully certified for Card Present and Card Not Present transactions, connecting to Fiserv processing platform, preferably through a Fiserv payment gateway or directly to North or Nashville front end system, however can also connect to Fiserv through a currently certified third party payment gateway.
    
  • Certification must include EMV and contactless technology support.
    
  • Vendor must provide make and model of any hardware that will be used for card reading at the POS.
    
  • Vendor must provide specific name and version number of any software that will be used for processing transactions in each location accepting card payments.
    
  • Vendor must identify and describe in detail all middleware solutions required or being proposed as value added service to existing transaction processing solutions.  

TouchNet is a Global Payments company and leading provider of integrated, comprehensive, and secure commerce and credential solutions for colleges and universities. For more information about TouchNet, please visit the vendor's website.

TouchNet payment Center Video

Demonstration by TouchNet vendor was held on 06/22/23 at 10am, and open to all colleges.  The demonstration was held during the regularly schedule Accounting Tips and Tricks meeting, over 160 people attended.   If you missed the meeting, please review the meeting recording.

An email on 06/27/23 was sent out to the BAR listsrve with the following message:

There was a lot of great information and insight that was shared during the demonstration, and we want to thank you for being candid and honest. We heard you and took this information back and shared it with the leadership team. Originally, we shared with you that the next step was to gather nominations for a College Advisory Group with the following schedule:

• Initial communication on 6/27
• Nominations submitted by 7/14
• Member selection notifications by 7/18

Given the feedback we received on concerns for year-end close priorities, current resource constraints and overall change fatigue we thought it would be best to take a brief pause on this step.

What we are proposing is to put this project on hold until we can create an action plan that better fits with the college’s needs. It is important for the PMO Team to have the support of the colleges as partners, as project work is a team effort. We hope this helps calm any angst that was created during the demonstration meeting. We will be reaching out to you all soon with a more feasible approach. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this pause, as we are very open to hearing you and tailoring our approach to ensure our joint success.

Advisory group members who are also members of a specific council or commission may be called upon to provide insights into the activities of this group.  

Advisory group members will be provided periodic status update slide deck materials enabling them to share their work on this group.  

Councils and commissions seeking a project status update presentation from the Project Management Office can reach out to Christyanna Dawson ([email protected]) to request an update at an upcoming council or commission meeting.

The College Collaboration Group meets the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon and is an open forum for ctcLink Points of Contact, Business Analysts, and topic-specific SMEs to gather and discuss an array of topics that need to be shared and collaborated on in our system.

 While the topics change each meeting, regular TouchNet Project updates will be provided to this group to ensure broad input is gathered on topics related to the TouchNet Software implementation efforts.