NEW YORK -- Small and medium-sized businesseswith a broadband connection from Verizon Online have a new option thatoffers faster discounted credit, debit and payment processing services:Verizon Merchant Services, Payments Powered by Chase Paymentech.

By using credit card processing services, offered through ChasePaymentech, businesses can expand or begin processing credit or debittransaction services for their customers. The ability to accept credit ordebit payments using Verizon's broadband-based service speeds checkouts andpleases customers.

Consumers are showing an increasing preference for non-cash payments,regardless of transaction size. Research from Visa found that debit cardsare the world's fastest-growing payment method, with consumer debitpurchase volume up 19 percent from the year prior. Visa also notes that 33percent of consumer purchases in the United States are now card-based, withthat trend growing every year.

"Accepting electronic payments is critical for businesses of allsizes," said Michael Schaefer, director of business broadband services forVerizon. "At Verizon, we're always looking out for our business customers.We've leveraged Verizon's buying power and Chase Paymentech's scale ofoperations to provide very competitive credit card processing rates to oursmall- and medium-sized business customers."

Depending on the volume of transactions processed, the paymentprocessing discounts offered to Verizon's broadband business customers cancompletely or partially offset the monthly cost of the merchant's broadbandconnection. Verizon's small- to medium-sized business customers can choosefrom a range of Chase Paymentech-approved payment terminals supporting afull spectrum of electronic-payment options. Also included is the option ofa wireless broadband terminal that can be used virtually anyplace withinthe retail space.

According to Peter A. Gasparro, group executive, partnership programsat Chase Paymentech, "There are still a significant number of dial-upterminals in the marketplace, and they take between 15-20 seconds toprocess each transaction. Dial-up terminals are mainly used because mostsmall businesses haven't yet begun to use their high-speed connectivity fortheir payment processing."

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