What You Need to Consider Before Setting up a Debit/Credit Card Facility?

Many departments have already put in place facilities to accept debit/credit cards via point of sale (POS) terminals and manual imprinting, as well as the acceptance of payments by credit card over the internet (e-commerce). It is important to keep in mind the following points before proceeding:
All arrangements for accepting debit/credit card payments must be approved by either the principal, dean, director or chair of the department
All costs and benefits surrounding the acceptance of debit cards and credit cards should be considered before committing to accept these forms of payment. Some of these considerations are as follows:
Transaction fees (normally a percentage based on the dollar volume of transactions).
Monthly rental of on-line terminals
Monthly rental of manual imprinters
Monthly fee for Tele-Deposit services
What is your volume of transactions? A low number of transactions may make the cost of equipment rental impractical.
All costs relating to providing the debit/credit card facility are charged to the department centrally by the Financial Services Department (including fees, costs, and charge backs)
All credit card payments received by departments must be deposited directly into a University bank account using a University of Toronto merchant account. Caution: funds must not be deposited into a non-University of Toronto account at any point in the process.
For the above reasons, all requests for debit/credit card facilities must be reviewed by the Financial Services Department before merchant accounts are created and available for departmental use. Departments should also be aware of their responsibilities once the debit/credit card facility is up and running.