Level 3 Transactions

Level 2 and 3 transactions are optional ways of processing payments made with Purchase Cards (p-cards) and GSA SmartPay cards. These "business issue" credit cards may carry cardholder cash-back benefits that the merchant will bear upon acceptance. The interchange rate for processing these cards is typically higher. However, incentives put in place by Mastercard and Visa allow merchants to lower the interchange rate for payment settlement of these cards.

To take advantage of these incentives, the merchant must provide additional information with the payment transaction information. This includes such items as tax rate and purchase order number. Savings of up to 1% of the value of the transaction can be realized, which can become significant. This capability is typically achieved with an online virtual terminal that provides the additional data entry fields. Process-Direct represents several providers of Level 2 and 3 enabled gateways that are compatible with all major payment platforms.