Saturday, November 15, 2008

Information on Merchant Accounts

Okay, you have set up your website and your e business is on the launch pad ready to go live. Before you can do this however, you need a system of accepting payments.


Your virtue shop is slightly different from the conventional shop. This is because you will not be in direct contact with shoppers. As a result, you will need a system which will enable you to receive payments online. One such system that will enable you to accept all the major credit cards and gift cards is a merchant account.


What is a Merchant account?


As a merchant, it is inevitable that you will need a line of credit. This may be necessitated by existing conditions and requirements. One such requirement is that put in place by major card brands in the US.
The initiative calls for all merchants wishing to accept their products to enter in contractual agreements with an acquiring bank.
The bank extends a line of credit to the merchant making it possible for the merchant to accept their credit cards.


Therefore a merchant account is simply a contract entered by a merchant and an acquiring bank. The contract makes it possible for the merchant to accept major brands of credit cards.


Is a Merchant Account the Same as a Payment Gateway?

The answer is no. A Payment Gateway is a service which processes credit cards using forms to input information. A Merchant on the other hand is a form of credit financing offered by banks.


Fees Linked to Merchant Accounts


A Merchant Account levies numerous fees and rates. Some of the fees are levied at certain predetermined time intervals. These time intervals can be monthly or quarterly.
Other levies are charged as a percentage of total purchases.

The former fees are usually set by the card providers while the latter billed to the acquiring bank by the card provider based on interchange fees. Interchange fees are established by Mastercard and Visa and categorized into various categorized based on automation, card type, and transaction circumstances into account.


This means that a business that makes use of card terminals to process cards attract less charges than business that key in card information manually.

Other than attracting lower charges, the use of card terminals to process credit cards also projects the business as been IT savvy and security conscious. These factors combine to build consumer confidence which translates to more consumer spending