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CompanyProfile
ISO/MLS contact:
East of Mississippi:
Craig Raney, Strategic Sales Executive
craig.raney@forte.net
866-290-5400, ext. 438
West of Mississippi:
Rolando Navarro, Strategic Sales Executive
rolando.navarro@forte.net
866-290-5400, ext. 733
General:
partnersales@forte.net
www.forte.net
Gateway to ACH, APIs and more
T exas-based Forte Payment Systems is rooted And Forte recently extended its acquiring and payment
in technology. In 1998, its founder, a software processing solutions to Canadian merchants. Additionally,
developer by trade, saw an opportunity to to streamline merchant boarding, the company offers an
build automated clearing house (ACH) solu- optional online API for U.S. and Canadian merchants.
tions as the transition to an all-electronic network sup-
ported by the Federal Reserve Banks two years earlier Forte's newly released hybrid EMV POS functions in both
was gaining momentum commercially. standalone mode as a countertop system and hybrid mode
in which software controls the terminal and performs
"We built our platform, our systems and capabilities with payments. "We've engineered it so that companies
ACH in mind initially," said Jeff Thorness, founder and can implement it in a PCI-scope minimized fashion,"
Chief Executive Officer of Forte. "Our customers liked our Thorness said. "It allows the software to control it and
solution set for ACH, but were looking for total solutions, get the information it needs, all while keeping sensitive
so we added card services. We then became a gateway, information out of scope for PCI compliance."
where we integrated to all the big processors initially, and
we also did some acquiring as well, in time." All bases covered
Even today, ACH remains core. "All of our solution sets For Thorness, it's not just about core processing, but
take advantage of our ACH capabilities, so it's hard to also all the extras the company offers to help boost ISO
find a stronger ACH provider out there," Thorness said. margins and strengthen merchant stickiness. Noteworthy
"But beyond that, we're also a tech shop. We've been among them is transparency: pricing is posted online at
catering to integrated VARs or partners who need to build three levels, Starter, Merchant+ and Enterprise.
out payment functionality. We have a fantastic set of APIs
that I would rate on par with PayPal, Braintree and Stripe." "We like to be very transparent with not only our pricing,
but everything we do here," he said. "We have solutions
Recent innovations around mobile payments and other phone-based systems,
like IVR. We've built solutions for recurring and back-
As a tech shop, Forte continues to innovate. It currently office type payments and continue to retail and online,"
serves the retail, government, healthcare, education, essentially covering all commerce channels as merchants
nonprofit, property management, fitness and utility need them.
sectors with a spectrum of billing, payment, authentication
and security solutions. Thorness believes a tremendous opportunity exists for
ISOs to differentiate themselves. "The bottom line is that
The company recently introduced the Account Updater we love to work with ISOs," he said. "We don't necessarily
for businesses that enhances recurring billing. From have to be the total solution. We can just be a piece of the
the tokenized accounts of the merchant's recurring puzzle. If they just need us for ACH, that's fine. If they
transactions, the updater compares the data against need us to be a gateway instead of doing the acquiring on
the issuer's database and then autocorrects account the card side, that's fine, too. We can configure and set up
information for each merchant. the relationship exactly to meet the needs of the partner
or merchant."
It also launched the REST API platform for developers,
which the company describes as being focused on the user For its integrated partners, Forte offers revenue share
experience, scalabe and able to remove the complexity opportunities, access to APIs, integration support and
of payment management in such areas as data security, customer support.
funding and billing.
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