Are you ready to start an online store? While it’s an important decision to make for your business, it can be challenging to determine which payment service is the best for your eCommerce business. To help you make that decision, this post will go through what payment gateways and payment processors are – as well as what merchant accounts have to do with all of it.

To accept online payments, a gateway is mandatory. Essentially, a payment gateway allows merchants to process payments online; it’s a merchant service that facilitates eCommerce transactions. It’s often described as the online equivalent of a physical POS in a brick-and-mortar store. A payment gateway is like a buffer between your website and payment processor; it helps securely transmit the payment information to the payment ecosystem to be authorized. A payment gateway is necessary because it’s not secure to send payment details directly from your website to your payment processor. When a customer enters their payment information online, the payment gateway ensures the information is encrypted and secure. With a payment gateway, transactions can occur either via an integrated shopping cart or through an API.

Payment processor

Payment processors negotiate processing, set-up, and payment equipment rates, as well as set up the merchant account. They act as a middleman between merchants and acquirers. They may also provide the technology and hardware (traditional terminals) that enables the merchant to process credit and debit card transactions, which include sales, authorizations, and refunds.

Merchant accounts

A merchant account is a type of mandatory bank account required to accept credit cards – whether online or in-store. You have two options: you either own your own merchant account or use a joint one.

Sign up for merchant accounts, payment gateways, gift/loyalty cards, merchant cash advance/ loan, check, EBT, Debit and payroll services that we offer through our Online Merchant Application.