FAQ - Does Curbstone Card require specific network/acquirer/bank?

Your bank (or "acquirer") is the company with whom you obtain a "merchant account" and sign a formal "Merchant Agreement" for them to buy your card transactions at a discount.

Every bank/acquirer uses the communications services of an "authorization network" with whom they contract, transparent to you.  Sometimes the bank/acquirer owns the network, and sometimes they use an independent one or one owned by another bank/acquirer.

Curbstone Card software is formally certified to 6 authorization networks, which provides access to the vast majority of bank/acquirers in the US and Canada.  Chances are very good that your bank/acquirer has a relationship with at least one of the networks with which Curbstone Card is formally certified.

Therefore, Curbstone Card is acquirer agnostic.  And, to provide the greatest benefit to the merchant, we allow

Multiple simultaneous connections to different networks to provide the different benefits of each

The Curbstone API remains the same, so network/acquirer changes should not require any programming changes

Merchant can solicit competitive bids for processing and make an informed choice of the best acquirer

Merchants can change networks once a year for FREE, and the two can run side by side during testing