MERCHANT ACCOUNTS

Why should I accept online payments

Being able to offer your customers the ability to pay for goods and services online not only makes your business more attractive to do business with but opens up a huge market nationally and internationally of new customers who wish to shop and pay online. Accepting credit card payments and online transactions with a Merchant Account Provider helps gain your customers trust that their payment are secure and your company is trustworthy.

What is a merchant account?

A merchant account is a special account created by your company to accept and process credit card payments. The credit card information is passed to a bank via a secure server which is indicated by the lock symbol appearing and the web address prefix ‘https’. The bank will process any credit card payments online for you ensuring that the payer has enough funds available. If so, then the money will then be transferred to your companies merchant account within two to three business days. There are a number of companies that will process online payments for you charging you either a monthly fee or commission on every transaction.

Which merchant account provider should I choose ?

There are many different Merchant Account Providers all offering different packages, commission structures, charges and levels of integration with your back office systems. The major merchant account providers include: Worldpay, Paypal, Nochex, Protx and Barclays Merchant Services and they all vary in their requirements to set up an account from a simple web form to multi page documents and credit checks.

Sagepay are fast becoming the choice of the small business when taking their first steps into selling online. With low monthly fees and a small commission they have proved a popular choice.

The Sagepay system is also a lot less complex to integrate with and offers developers the ability to add a lot of back office integration with its seemless systems. Another benefit of using Sagepay is that the customer always stays on your site which gives the consumer confidence in your payemnt systems. Set up is usually within a day of completing the application process and their administration system is easy to use.

Additional options using Sagepay include using their SSL which can aid PCI Compliance and save you having to purchase an SSL Certificate.

Sagepay offer their services with NO MONTHLY CONTRACT and can help you obtain a merchant account number as well.

Webphoria are a Sagepay approved partner. CLICK HERE FOR A FREE ACCOUNT

Stripe are a new payment provider with good integration facilities for websites and mobile. The integration is straightforward and is already integrated into all the major ecommerce platforms.

Find out more here.

Worldpay Internet Payment Solutions are one of the biggest credit card processors with thousands of business signed up to their Internet Merchant Account and Payment Processing services. With Worldpay you can accept payments over the internet, by phone, fax and mail. They accept Visa, MasterCard, Diners, American Express, JCB and all the major credit and debit cards like Switch, Laser, Electron and more. Bank transfers (such as the German ELV system), instalments, standing-order and direct-debit style payments can all be accepted in your customer’s own currency and language – wherever they are in the world.

Set up can be time consuming but typically takes between 7 – 14 days and they accept over 90% of applicants. Worldpay usually do a credit check on your company and charge a one time set up fee, ask for 6 months of fees to be paid in advance and charge a fee per transaction on all payments. Initial set up can be expensive with Worldpay but they are the market leaders and will inspire great confidence with your customers.

PayPal allows any business or consumer with an email address to securely, conveniently and cost-effectively send and receive payments online. Paypal is ideally suited for small businesses, online merchants, individuals and others who wish to start accepting payments online quickly and with minimum setup. In fact you can set up a Paypal account in a matter of minutes with no credit checks – as long as you have an email address you can sign up.

Merchants have access to a wide range of additional services including Instant Payment Confirmation which allows you to integrate your online shop with your back end systems as well as email payments so your customers only pay when they receive your bill. Paypal have also recently launched a new suite of merchant products that will make online payments even easier to integrate completely by-passing the Paypal site so your customers never leave your site. It is free to send money via Paypal and they charge a transaction commission between 1.9% and 3.4% and £0.20 on every payment.

We have already integrated a number of online shops into the Paypal system and with over 70 million registered users its a great feature to have.

Nochex is a UK based company that allows anyone with a UK credit/debit card to pay online without having to register. Their rates are competitive compared to Paypal and Worldpay charging only 2.6% and a 20p transaction charge. More importantly there are no chargeback fees so all payments are guaranteed. The only downside with Nochex is that they do have sending limits of £300 for Nochex members and £100 for non members. This could limit the types of online shops Nochex would be suitable for. Sending limits can be increased but only after a certain time period.

Nochex have a similar automatic payment confirmation system to Paypal that allows us to integrate online payments with your back office systems.