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Buyers' Guide to
Online Payment Acceptance
Chapter 3: The Merchant
Account
A
merchant account is an account at a financial
institution that allows you to accept credit
cards. You may find that you can acquire a
merchant account directly from your local bank or
you may decide to use any of a number of Merchant
Account Providers that can be found using your
favorite search engine. Not all Merchant Accounts
can connect to the Internet, and the ones that
can may be limited to a particular Secure Payment
Gateway, so be sure to determine how this account
will connect to your site if you are a web
merchant.
A Merchant Account Provider will open an account
at a financial institution (a bank they are
partnered with) for you that can handle Internet
transactions. Be aware that there are a lot of
non-reputable Merchant Account Providers out
there, so make sure you check them out before you
commit to one. Avoid all the hype and jargon, and
don't pay more than a $100 processing fee to get
the account. Providers can get you equipment and
software to process credit cards, however you
don't necessarily have to buy the equipment or
software from them if you feel their prices
aren't within your budget range. All merchant
accounts will have some kind of set up or
application fee, which is usually at least $99.
In cases where there is no fee, they are making
up the difference with software or equipment
sales, or otherwise marking up the transaction
charges to cover this cost.
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