What you should look for when selecting an online credit card merchant account?

Once set-up your merchant account plays a major role in your online business. Therefore you must be really careful when selecting an Internet merchant account provider. Check below factors to assess online merchant account services.

Rates – What are they going to charge on monthly basis or per transaction basis?

Customer Service – This is vital to keep your customers happy. Check their customer support hours, how easy or difficult to contact them, do they have a phone support (this is a must) and average response time for an inquiry.

Level of security – They must be PCI compliant. Credit cards must be processed in a highly secured technical environment. The processing must maintain the industry standard security levels. It must be equal to an online banking system.

Dispute resolution process – The merchant account provider must have a properly define process to resolve disputes and charge backs. This process must be part of your terms and conditions in the ecommerce website. Your customers must agree to your terms and conditions before purchasing from your website.

History – Check how long they have been in the business. Bad ecommerce merchant account services cannot survive more than a year.

Customers – Ask a list of customers that you can contact and verify the quality of their merchant service.

Type of cards – Some online merchant accounts accepts VISA and MasterCards only. This is limiting your ability to cater for a wide range of customers. It is always good to select an online credit card processor who accepts all major credit cards such as VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diner’s Club, JCB etc.

Exchange Rates – You may have customers who are paying from different currencies. Your ecommerce merchant account should finally convert all payments to your base currency. Bad merchant account providers can rip you off from the exchange rate. Always check their exchange rate and compare with the day’s standard rate. If there is a considerably big difference then it is not a good sign.

There are hundreds of online merchant account providers. Only few are reliable, maintain an outstanding service and satisfying our above selection criteria.

Here is a review of our top online merchant account providers.

2checkout.com (See below and save $49)

2Checkout.com (2CO) is a worldwide leader in payment and e-commerce services. 2CO powers online merchants with a global platform of payment methods and world-class fraud prevention service on safe, secure, and reliable PCI-compliant payment pages.

Below is a summary of their service

• Accepts Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, Discover, PayPal, JCB, Diner’s Club and Debit Cards (in the U.S.)
• Safe and secure hosted payment platform
• Three-tier fraud prevention service
• Call center support services for your customers
• 30 currencies and 15 languages to support international buyers
• SSL certificate for secure payments

Use our promo code and Save $49

Save now!  Use our special promo code for a waiver of 2Checkout’s $49 signup fee and start selling online today!

PayPal

Paypal is the most widely used online credit card service provider on earth. In addition, they have over 230 million member accounts worldwide. This allows customers to pay from their PayPal account to your PayPal account without using a credit card. PayPal has extremely good features and few negatives from merchant’s point of view. Let’s review the details.

Why we like PayPal

• PayPal is the fastest way to accept online payments. Approval rate is very high.
• Easy to set-up.
• Very high security.
• Free to open an account. No set-up or monthly fee.
• One of the easiest ways for high risk merchants to accept credit cards.
• Very through dispute resolution process
• Customers are not reluctant to use their credit cards due to PayPal’s reputation.
• They can manage very high volume of transactions.

Few Negative Points

• Fees per transaction is bit high
• Only merchants of few countries can withdraw money from their PayPal account to a bank account.
• If you are accepting multi-currency payments then PayPal’s low exchange rate may be a disadvantage when withdrawing money to your bank account. This is always not the case. You need to check the exchange rate in PayPal’s exchange rate table at the time of withdrawing money.

WorldPay

WorldPay operate in over 40 countries and is a major global leader in payment processing. They pioneered online payments for small and medium sized businesses and process millions of online payments every day.

Worldpay is active in the development and implementation of anti-fraud systems which have helped protect businesses around the globe.

Below is a summary of their service

• Size – WorldPay is one of Europe’s largest payment services providers
• High volume – Process an average of over 12 million transactions per day
• Robust – Can process up to 200 simultaneous online transactions a second for a single customer
• Security and Fraud prevention – Their standard security package provides a high level of protection. WorldPay has developed a market leading fraud screening tool, drawing on data from the millions of payments they process globally. This involves over 50 individual checks against each transaction.
• Multi-currency – Process over 75 payment types and 120 transaction currencies
• Taylor-made solutions – They understand local market conditions around the world, which helps them to tailor their service to your specific needs.
• Global experience – Active in more than 40 countries
• Awards – WorldPay has twice been awarded the prestigious Queen’s Awards for Enterprise

Have you used or using any of the above online merchant account providers? We would love to read comments about their service. Please use the comment section below and share your experience with the readers. We really appreciate your comments.

 Merchant and Credit Card Fraud

Remember…always keep up to date with merchant account fraud and credit card fraud education! Please see the following to help advise about credit card fraud and merchant account fraud and how you can avoid the issue:

PCI | FBI | FTC | Stop Fraud .gov | HG | USA.gov | DOJ | SS | FFIEC | CSOS

Contact us anytime with your merchant processing questions.