Founded in 2010, Payfirma is a Canadian payments company that allows clients to accept credit and debit card payments, as well as gain the data and insight to run smarter, more successful businesses – all from one convenient platform. Known for our innovative payment technology, Payfirma was the winner of the Digital Finance Institute’s Fintech of the Year award in 2015. We are dedicated to quality and reliable service with 24/7 support, as well as the industry’s most comprehensive security with full PCI compliance for your clients. Our underwriting bank is First Data, the leading acquirer in Canada.

First Data is the acquirer that underwrites the merchant accounts. An acquirer is a type of bank that takes on the risk of card processing, as well as solicits, underwrites, and maintains the merchant account. Your clients will see First Data’s logo on their monthly statements, along with Payfirma’s.

Payment processing is the automated processing of electronic payment transactions between clients and their customers. For a more comprehensive explainer on payment processing, read our eBook Payment Processing 101. Payfirma provides merchant services (payment tools and merchant accounts), which enable clients to process payments. There are a lot of parties involved in credit and debit card processing, and payment companies like Payfirma allow clients to accept credit cards from multiple brands, card issuers, and networks in a single, efficient way.

Payfirma is a merchant account provider. This means that we set your clients up with their own dedicated merchant account. A merchant account is a type of bank account that is required to be able to accept payments. To compare, aggregators (another type of payment processor) do not provide clients with dedicated merchant accounts. Instead, they bundle clients together with other small businesses and allow them to accept payment using a joint account. This is the processing model for payment companies such as Square and Stripe.

No, they do not ever have to worry about PCI compliance. Every transaction processed is tokenized, encrypted, and protected. For further information on PCI compliance, check out this article.