Merchant Accounts Simplified

It’s not a secret that accepting credit cards online will make a substantial difference to your company's or personal online business. Companies and individuals all over the world who are selling their goods or services over the internet attain a merchent account and benefit from online sales. You can find the details in the following article.

What is an Internet merchant account?

A merchant account is an account held in a bank or a financial institution. Its purpose is to enable a merchant to process credit card payments in order to sell products or services to prospective clients providing them with an alternative mean of payment.

An internet merchant account will enable the merchant to charge credit cards in cases where the buyer’s card is not present at the moment of purchase.
You can be anywhere in the world and still exept credit cards without meeting your client or personally taking an order. All you require is a computer with internet connection, an internet merchant account and of course a virtual terminal. You will also find that in online shop can be very profitable since it works 24 hours and world wide.

How to apply for a merchant account?

The first possibility would be going to your local Bank and finding out weather you can process credit card payments through them. However, you should keep in mind that not in all banks you can receive this type of service, and there are very strict conditions for getting a merchant account from a Bank.
Application process is usually from 2-5 weeks depending on your Bank and your Banks policy. If you are a relatively new client chances are you won’t be accepted, not because the Bank manager dislikes your personality, but because the Bank isn’t willing to take any risks. Naturally these conditions change from Bank to Bank and there are always other legal ways of getting an internet merchant account.

Third party credit cards processors

A third party credit card processor is an organization or company, attaining a business agreement with a commercial Bank.
They hold an aggregator account in a Bank and process credit cards for merchants through a payment gateway which is integrated with the Banks payment network.
Credit card processors provide an alternative, quicker and easier way for merchants to accept credit card payments.
Industry leaders like Charge.com provide you, the merchant, with the full solution. Their system is SSL encrypted giving you and your client piece of mind. Their rates are highly competitive and applicants are usually approved with in 24 hours!

How does the merchant account system work?

Let us begin with a simple example. You have an online shop selling books, furniture, computers etc’. A buyer finds your site appealing and decides to place an order. Once submitting the required information including his credit card number and identity details, the payment gateway transfers the submitted information to the banks network for validation. If the buyer’s information is verified, accurate and there is sufficient available credit on his account a success message is returned and the buyers account will be debited. Otherwise, an error message will be sent to the buyer and the processor.