Internet Merchant Account (part 1 of 2)

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Online businesses are part of the ever changing and improving market.  But how can online businesses accept payments when transactions and products are online displayed online.  Accepting payments through the business’s website can be done with the help of an internet merchant account and provider.

To accept online payments by a credit card, the business owner should have an Internet merchant account with an acquiring institution.  There are three steps between the customer paying for the purchase and the business owner’s bank account:

The first step of the first layer is called the payment gateway.  The payment gateway provides the code that will transmit the customer’s order to and from the internet merchant account provider.  The payment gateway enables the business owner to accept the customer billing information and the necessary validation steps that must be followed.

The payment gateway is the means of getting  the secured transactions to the merchant provider for an authorization, think of it as a Point of Sale terminal for the internet.  The payment gateway is provided and setup by the internet merchant account provider.

The payment gateway can also be linked to a secured shopping cart for e-commerce business owners.  The shopping cart is a secured portal that allows the customers to enter in their information, credit card number and then send the transaction to the payment gateway.  From here the transaction goes to the merchant account provider and then a confirmation email is sent to the business owner informing them that a customer has made a purchase.

Then the merchant account provider will enable you to accept the payments from the customers.  A merchant account is an account with a financial institution or bank that enables you to accept credit card payments.  There are some banks who still do not offer internet merchant account capability.  There are some financial institutions and banks that are not providing online payments because online transactions can be prone to credit card fraud.