How Does Payment Processing Work? (credit, account, companies, get)

[cdcdguy]

Just curious. You send a check for a credit card bill, or other payment. They get thousands a day. How do they credit your account when it comes in? Is it read by computer? How long does it take to get credited to your acccount? Anyone know how the big companies do it?

[flyonpa]

Each day they (assuming its Paper Check) to the post office and pick up the mail. That is 'today' batch All will be credit for that day regardless of when they put them in there system.

Method 1:
They have a machine that open the envelopes and lines them up with the Check 1st, then the Return Coupon next. A data entry person looks at the check, and types in the amount on the check. (they also Encode the amount on the bottom of the check and/or Read the MIRC code and do a ECheck back to your account). The machine then scans the Return coupon to pick up you account number off it. It then credits that amount to your account in there next cycle. There is also a key that 'kicks' out the check/coupon if the data entry op see something wrong (like Change of address is checked or something is written on the coupon). They May be 'physical' see it in front of them, but mostly they see a image of it on a screen. The data entry op may be anywhere.

Method 2:
The mail is Open by machine, it uses Image Software to 'read' the check to find the amount on it. It then reads the Coupon to get the account number. Then credits the account. The S/W will also 'kick' out problem for human to look at, if it can't scan it then it goes to method 1 to be done.