HOW TO ACQUIRE A CREDIT
CARD MERCHANT ACCOUNT?
Today, more than eighty
five percent of the purchases are made
using the credit card, more so when it
is an online purchase. According, to a
study, the sales of a retail store and
an online retail store can increase more
than 4 times when they accept credit
card payments. If your company still
insists on check or cash then you can
put it as an exhibit in the museum.
Getting a credit card merchant account
must be the highest priority of a
business if they wish to survive the
competition.
If you have an idea of
credit card merchant account then it is
good but if you don’t have an idea, then
there is no need to panic. It is a
simple concept and also simple to get
one. There are several providers and a
simple procedure to get you a credit
card merchant account.
But before you decided
whether you need a credit card merchant
account or not, it is better if you have
a little knowledge about credit card
processing. The most important players
are the credit card companies such as
MasterCard or Visa, followed by the
banks that tie up with the credit card
companies and provide the cards to their
customers and finally the clearing
houses which verify the transactions and
process it. Then, there are independent
sales organisations or merchant account
providers, who ensure that your business
is linked with the credit card merchant
account. To get yourself an account, you
will be talking to these guys, so be
sure to choose a dependable provider,
like Merchant Accounts Express who give
a price protection guarantee for
safeguarding the interests of the
account holder.
Ok, now let us look into
the infrastructure required to
successfully operate the merchant
account. Establishing a gateway, should
be the top most priority on the list.
The gateway establishes a communication
link to the clearing houses. One way to
do this is, using the swipe machine,
seen in most of the retail
establishments. The card in swiped on
the machine. The machine captures and
sends the details of the credit card to
a clearing house. The clearing house
checks to see for any fraud and the
credit balance and authorises the card
once there are no discrepancies. At the
retail store you get the charge slip.
The owner of the credit card signs the
slip and gives it to the “credit card
merchant account” holder.
However, if you are in a
business that relies more on e-commerce,
then the machine isn’t for you. You will
only need software installed on your
computer that will make possible,
exchange of the data between the
clearing house and your merchant
account. But, this will require you to
manually key in the customer credit card
details, transaction details etc,
therefore, the extra effort and time
should be factored in and also the
prospect of a data entry fault. However,
you also have another option of “real
time payment gateway” such as PayPal.
Contact
one of our helpful account
representatives to assist you in the
setup of
a
high risk merchant account,
high risk ach account or
offshore merchant account for a
high risk merchant.