Internet Payment Gateway

What is Internet Payment Gateway?

Whether you want to sale your shoes-clothes online or you want to deliver pizza-burger from door to door or you want to let the parents of your school's students, pay the fees online, you just can't do it without Internet Payment Gateway. It's very important to optimize your website with a good payment gateway according to your business needs to accept payments from your consumers in a reliable and hassle free process. Payment gateway is an Application Service Provider which is widely used by e-commerce solutions to accept payments online using buyer's Master Card, Visa Card, Credit Card, Wallets, Debit Card or Net Banking. Payment gateway is one of the most important reason for the growing online business. Payment gateway is a service by which a customer can pay the money to any online or offline business without carrying any cash. In this process customer submit their card details and then the payment gateway passes those sensitive information's securely to the merchant and then to the bank. Then the payment gateway first gets the information from the bank whether the payment has been approved or not then it provides the info to the card holder. If the payment gets approved then the payment gateway submits that for settlement where the payment amount gets deducted from card holder's bank account

Merchant account & Payment gateway

Payment gateway and merchant account are like brothers. Means you need both of them to receive payment online. Merchant account holds the funds before deposited to the bank account and the payment gateway's job is to approve or decline the transaction.

Payment Service Provider

Payment Service Provider or PSPs is a software combination of merchant account and payment gateway, by which seller can accept electronic payments by a variety of payment methods like credit card, debit card, net banking and other money transfer options. So currently all the e-commerce websites or apps uses PSPs to accept payment online. What kind of payment gateway options are available?
There are a lot of different options for you to choose from when looking at a payment gateway. Some of the main options include. Full service Payment Providers (Payment Gateway and Merchant Account):
Full service payment service providers are always the smart choice to get started with, as it doesn't require your own merchant account and if you do the provider will offer that too: About Payment Gateway:
Before you can start taking payments with a payment gateway, you will need the following things first:
      (1). A business bank account.
      (2). A one page summary of what your business is about.
      (3). A website (if you plan to trade online) with terms and conditions.
      (4). Management accounts and a profit & loss projection for the next 6 months minimum.
In India Setting up a merchant account requires a good relationship with a bank, and sometime a minimum value of transactions a month.
Payment Service Provider
It is quite simple to set up with a Payment Service Provider but requirements varies provider to provider. Now days full service provider provides everything you need to receive payments online, you just need a current business bank account, an active email address, business details and office address proof.
Which payment gateway is suitable for you?
Choosing the correct payment gateway or a full service payment provider can be very difficult. Here we have tried to clear some of your quires about payment gateway.
1. How soon do you need to start accepting payments?
Setting up a merchant account and payment gateway will usually take around 3 - 4 weeks. However, some payment gateway providers like PayPal and Stripe let you sign up without a merchant account and get started straight away. While most payment gateways offer help setting up a merchant account, obtaining one can still be a long and complex process - particularly if you're a new or small business going through the process for the first time.

2. How much do you want to pay for a payment gateway?
Definitely cost is a concern for every business. Before committing to any payment gateway provider make sure you are aware of their fee structure. The most important thing to think about is fully-loaded costs: set-up costs + transaction costs + admin costs. In India a payment gateway and merchant account will typically cost around Rs.30000/- to Rs.60000/- in set-up costs, around 2% per transaction and Rs.1200/- to Rs.60000/- yearly fee. You will usually also be charged extra fees for any chargebacks or refunds. If you only take a relatively low volume of online payments, then you should try to avoid monthly fees and a high setup cost. You may want to look at a full service provider like PayPal which is quick and free to set up.

3. How fast do you want to receive funds from your actual sales date?
After completing the transaction from the customer side it takes few days to get it settled. Settlement timing varies from provider to provider. Some provider may hold your fund for 15 to 30 days. Some provider has same day settlement facility. Some provider also give you the option to choose the settlement timing.

4. Do you need to receive international payments?
Not all the provider offers International or multi-currency transactions. So if you have or will have international customer then definitely you should check for that. Sometime you may need to have merchant account on the specific country and pay extra fees for online international transaction.
5. How secure is the payment gateway?

Privacy and security is the most important factor in online transactions. We always recommend our clients to choose reputed secure well recognized PCI DSS certified provider who provides built in security protocols to make the online transaction more secure. Most of the payment gateway provider provides lots of tools like fraud protection, screening tools, filters by which you can get the information of the payee and protect you and the payee both.

6. How good is the support of your payment gateway provider?
Support is the most important part in this sector and can really hamper your business if it's not up to the mark. Always go for a payment gateway provider who is available when you need.
Some of the key questions about this fact are as follows:-
      How responsive, friendly and effective is the support?
      Does the provider offers email or phone support only or do they offer wide range of support?
      Where is the customer support based? Do they work the same hours as you?
      Do you need to pay for the extra customer support?
A good place to start is contacting them to see how the initial experience goes as well as doing a research online into other customers' experiences. The best way to find out about their support is contacting them and researching about their response. Well, you will still not be able to understand all about their support as some provider will make you feel good just to get you registered with them and after that they may not be so great in after sales service.

7. What types of cards are accepted by the Payment Gateway Provider?
A payment gateway generally accepts VISA, Master, American Express Cards. For international transaction you have to check if the provider supports that country local cards.

8. Do you need automatic recurring payments features from your internet payment gateway provider?
If you want to take recurring payments you may want to look for a system that will store your clients' credit card numbers and let you automatically charge them on a recurring basis. Many gateways now have this feature, but in almost all cases they also require your business to have an online merchant account. PayPal Standard, Google Checkout and some others are unable to handle this kind of pre-authorized transaction Now days automatic recurring payments are getting popular. In this, the system store the card information and it automatically charges the customers at the fixed timing like monthly or yearly. Remember, you won't find this feature in all payment gateway providers so if you need this features then be sure if they have automatic recurring payments or not.

9. Hosted or Non-Hosted Payments?
Hosted payment gateways
In a hosted payment gateway customer redirects to a different secure payment web page where customer makes the payment and once the transaction is done customer returns to your website and the order gets confirmed. Well, redirecting to another page, may cost effective and helps you to meet PCI requirements, but some customers may lose patience completing the transaction process with the extra steps and may feel uncomfortable making the payment in a different page. 70% customers like to pay on the same site or same domain where they started choosing your products.

Non-hosted payment gateway.
By using a no hosted payment gateway, your customers can pay by entering the details on your website instead of redirecting to another page or website. For this you may need to comply with certain legal and technical PCI requirements and an SSL certificate for your domain and website. Some payment gateway provider allows the customers to send the details directly from browser to the provider where the sensitive information doesn't touch your server. This is far simpler than others online transaction process as it has less and simple steps.

10. Does your payment gateway supports your existing/planned integrations?
Another big question is whether the payment gateway have the features to integrate with your existing shopping cart, billing or the account solutions you are using. Most of the current payment gateway providers has this features with friendly API and you should always choose the one as it will you're your valuable time and money. Because if you will go for a payment gateway provider who doesn't have this features then you will have to redesign or change the whole existing software accordingly to integrate with the payment gateway.