Independent Sales Organization (ISO)

An ISO is an Independent Sales Organization that represents a Bank or Bank/Processor alliance. The ISO has an agreement to sell the services of the Bank or Bank/Processor alliance, and is allowed to mark up the Fees and sign up merchants. -These entities are classic Middle Men, as they are typically not performing the services sold. They typically match the banking services they sell with “Front End” solutions for accepting transactions in order to offer merchants a working system. -Their Front End Systems can be anything from Verifone or Hypercom POS Terminals to PC based Dial-Out Credit Card Processing Software, to Shopping Carts paired with a Secure Payment Gateway. (In all cases, the Front End solution must be compatible with the Processor in order to function.)