Choosing An Online Payment Processor

COURTLAND BROOKS - May 17 - Finding a payment processor for your online business doesn’t have to be an arduous process. The key is to find a processor that can offer you the right merchant account for your deposits, a secure payment gateway to process the transactions, and fraud prevention and detection tools to safeguard your online business. You can source each service separately, but if you want to simplify the management of your online payments you should choose a single source provider that can offer you all three -this will save you both time and money. To help navigate your choices, keep these points in mind:

1. Choosing the right merchant account. If you are planning to accept payments from around the world, you should consider multi-currency processing. Some payment processors will allow you to accept payments in one currency and receive settlements in the currency you choose. If you have locations in multiple countries, it is important to choose a payment processor with banking relationships that can provide merchant accounts in those countries.

2. Pricing. While it is important to make sure you are not overpaying for processing, beware of gravitating to the lowest cost provider. If a processor offers you slightly higher rates there are often tangible benefits associated with the incremental cost. This can include services like a dedicated account manager and in-house risk management team. Your payment processor is an important partner and it is important to know they are monitoring your account for fraud and keep you informed of new services that can benefit your business. A lot of processors still mail-out statements and chargeback reports. It can be a significant benefit to managing your business if your processor provides you with access to online reporting of your processing and any incoming chargebacks.

3. There are also some direct factors that can impact your processing costs. Inquire if the processor has the ability to provide some type of “intelligent transaction routing”, a service where transactions can be routed to lowest cost acquiring bank based on the card type and where the transaction originates. For example, if the payment is presented with a U.S. issued BIN credit card, with a US address, coming from a U.S. IP address that transaction could be sent to the merchant’s U.S. merchant account. If another transaction is from the U.K. issued BIN, address and IP, it will route to the merchant’s U.K. merchant account. This can significantly lower your costs and the consumer’s will not pay cross border fees that are often levied by the banks, making it a win-win for both you and your customers.

4. Payment gateway functionality makes all the difference. Make sure you choose a secure online payment gateway that offers global payment processing, fraud tools, comprehensive integration tools, and set-up support. You should be able to accept all major international credit cards, and many offer processing of direct debit payments as well. The gateway should be easy to integrate to your website and provide hosted pages if needed. If you are offering subscription services, make sure you can manage your customer profiles and set recurring billing schedules. If you need to manually enter transactions, you will need a web-based virtual terminal.

5. Online payment fraud is a concern for all online merchants. To minimize your fraud exposure, your online payment gateway should be provide the standard array of fraud prevention tools including CVV/CCV2 and address verification as well as more sophisticated tools like credit card BIN look-up and velocity checking. Your online payment gateway provider should also be able to provide you with Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode and will even configure custom risk rules that fit with your business model.

6. To effectively manage your business, you will need to make sure you have adequate reporting tools. Real-time reports are the best option that allows you to monitor transaction processing. Make sure to ask if you can schedule reports and if they are available in various formats.

7. PCI-DSS compliance for any business in credit card processing is mandatory. When sourcing a payment provider, it is important to ask if they are PCI compliant. If you as a merchant require assistance in becoming PCI compliant, your payment processor should be able to provide assistance. The better providers will have knowledge staff and partnerships with organizations that can provide you with certification. If you are a larger business that stores credit card data you might want to a payment processor that can provide tokenization, a process that can significantly reduce your PCI compliance liability.

Comments

[Roger Pavane]

In addition publishers must consider convenience based payments options that allow for frictionless billing to either an end-user consumers Home Phone or Mobile Phone account. In today’s economy debit card use has increased exponentially and consumers are cautious online with sites they do not yet have experience with. Converting a user to a paying consumer is key and smart alternative choices must be provided in order to accomplish this for the publisher.

[Payment Services]

The processing of payment is a fundamental aspect that every business has to take into account if they are to achieve success. Then again, it is important to understand that process of payment is not a preserve for online businesses alone. Any business looking to increase their sales should be able to accommodate customers willing to pay by credit card, cash or online accounts

[Merchant account]

I want to know who handles the money issues and gritty in merchant account providers? Do they ask help from banks or any payment gateway?

[Online Payments]

Accepting online payments has proven to be an economic goldmine for internet-based companies. Well-established merchants have come to realize the incredible opportunity the internet brings by way of exposing potential customers to merchandise all over the world, who otherwise would have been required to visit their store in person.