Merchant Services and Payment Processing

Payment Processing That Works as Hard as Your Business

Valley First merchant services combine interchange-plus pricing, next-business-day settlement, and direct integration with your business checking account — eliminating the delays and markups common with third-party processors.

Every business that accepts card payments makes two interconnected decisions: which hardware and software to use at the point of sale, and which processor to route the transactions through. Many business owners evaluate the first decision carefully — comparing POS terminals, reading reviews of e-commerce plugins — but accept whatever processor their industry trade association recommends or whoever cold-called them last month with a "zero-fee" promise that turns out to mean something very different when you read the statement.

Valley First structures merchant services differently because we are the processor and the bank. When a customer swipes, taps, or inserts a card at your business, the transaction authorization runs through our processing platform, the funds settle directly into your Valley First business checking account, and the entire flow happens within one institution. There is no intermediary processor holding your funds for an extra day, no separate statement to reconcile, and no phone call to a third-party support desk when something goes wrong at 4:45 PM on a Friday.

Our pricing model is interchange-plus — you pay the wholesale interchange rate set by Visa, Mastercard, and other card networks, plus a transparent Valley First margin. This means your effective rate depends on the mix of card types your customers use rather than a blended "qualified" rate that overcharges on premium rewards cards while advertising a low teaser number. We provide a free rate comparison by analyzing your current processor statement line by line, and in most cases, Valley First comes in below what businesses are paying — sometimes by half a percentage point or more on the effective blended rate.

Service Breakdown

The table below compares Valley First merchant processing solutions so you can identify the right combination of hardware, software, and settlement features for your specific business model.

Processing Solution	Countertop POS	Mobile POS	Payment Gateway	Virtual Terminal
Best For	Retail, restaurants, salons	Food trucks, markets, service pros	E-commerce, subscriptions	Phone/mail orders, invoicing
Hardware	EMV + NFC terminal, receipt printer, scanner	Bluetooth card reader + smartphone app	No hardware — online checkout only	Desktop or laptop with internet
Card-Present Rate	1.5%–2.3% + $0.10	1.8%–2.6% + $0.10	N/A (card-not-present)	N/A (keyed entry)
Card-Not-Present Rate	N/A	N/A	2.3%–3.2% + $0.15	2.5%–3.5% + $0.15
E-Commerce Integrations	Not included	Not included	Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, API	Manual entry or batch upload
Recurring Billing	Not supported	Not supported	Supported with tokenization	Manual recurring entry
Settlement Speed	Next business day	Next business day	Next business day	Next business day
Setup Time	1–3 business days	Same day (app download)	1–3 business days	Same day (browser-based)

All Valley First merchant processing solutions connect to a single reporting dashboard accessible through your online banking login. Daily settlement reports, chargeback notifications, and month-end statements appear alongside your checking account activity — no separate portal to manage.

Point-of-Sale Systems for Every Storefront

From a single countertop terminal for a boutique shop to a multi-register restaurant setup with kitchen display integration, Valley First POS solutions match your physical footprint and transaction volume.

Countertop POS terminals from Valley First support EMV chip insertion, contactless tap payments including Apple Pay and Google Wallet, and traditional magnetic stripe swipes. The terminal prints receipts, connects to barcode scanners for retail inventory lookups, and integrates with popular POS software platforms for table management, tip entry, and end-of-shift reporting. For businesses that want to accept payments on a smartphone or tablet — farmers market vendors, food truck operators, tradespeople invoicing on-site — the Valley First mobile POS solution pairs a compact Bluetooth card reader with an app that handles invoicing, digital receipts, and transaction history.

Restaurants using Valley First POS can separate checks, apply automatic gratuities for large parties, and close out at the end of service with a report that matches deposits to the penny. Retail stores can link the terminal to inventory management so that each sale decrements stock counts in real time. And because the processing fees flow through your Valley First business checking account in a single daily batch, reconciling at month-end takes minutes instead of the hour or more that many businesses spend matching third-party processor statements to their bank ledger.

E-Commerce and Online Payment Gateways

The Valley First payment gateway integrates with every major e-commerce platform, supports tokenized card storage for returning customers, and includes built-in fraud screening tools that reduce chargebacks without blocking legitimate transactions.

Selling online introduces a different set of payment processing challenges than a physical storefront. Card-not-present transactions carry higher interchange rates because the card networks consider them riskier. Chargebacks are more common, and fraud attempts — card testing, friendly fraud, account takeover — require active screening. The Valley First payment gateway addresses these risks with configurable fraud rules including Address Verification Service matching, CVV verification, velocity checks that flag unusual transaction patterns, and 3D Secure authentication for high-value orders.

Integration options cover the full range of e-commerce setups. Pre-built plugins for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix, and Squarespace make setup a one-click affair — install the plugin, enter your Valley First merchant credentials, and the checkout page starts processing within minutes. For custom-built websites, a REST API with comprehensive documentation enables developers to build payment flows that match any checkout design or user experience. Recurring billing for subscription businesses, membership sites, and SaaS platforms is supported through tokenized card storage, which saves the customer's payment method securely so they can be charged on the subscription schedule without re-entering card details each cycle.

Why Processing With Your Bank Matters

When the same institution handles both payment processing and deposit accounts, settlement is faster, reconciliation is simpler, and support calls reach a person who can see your full financial picture.

The most common frustration business owners voice about merchant services is the settlement delay. A customer's card is charged on Monday, the third-party processor batches it Tuesday, an ACH transfer initiates Wednesday, and the funds arrive in the business checking account Thursday morning. For a business operating on tight cash flow, that three-day lag means Tuesday's supplier payment and Wednesday's payroll both run against a balance that does not yet reflect Monday's revenue.

Because Valley First is both processor and bank, transactions batched before 6:00 PM Pacific Time settle as internal transfers the next business day. There is no ACH delay, no holding period while funds sit in a processor's settlement account. The money moves from the card network to your checking account in one overnight cycle. For businesses that need same-day access to funds — a restaurant covering a weekend liquor order, a retailer who needs to restock a hot-selling item before the weekend — same-day funding is available for 0.2% of the transaction amount. Valley First deposit accounts are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000 per depositor, providing the same protection for merchant processing balances as for traditional deposits.