Payment Gateways and Merchant Accounts: How, What, Why and When? - The Vikazan

Payment Gateways and Merchant Accounts: How, What, Why and When?
Posted by John Spinner on March 3, 2009 Updated by John Spinner on March 3, 2009 |

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How to get Started?

To collect money online you need to establish two important steps.

1. Internet Merchant Account: This will be provided by your bank or any national bank. It is different from a regular merchant account.

2. Payment Gateway: Payment gateway is a key part of any ecommerce application that allows websites to collect money online. Payment gateway is a secured connection between your website and the bank credit card processors, credit issuing banks such as Visa/Mastercard, and merchant account such Bank Account/Chase/Wachovia etc. A payment gateway company would have already established connectivity with all types of merchant accounts and credit card processors. To understand more take a look at the diagram on Authorize.net website (a payment gateway company).

What are my options?

Option1- Vikaza Gateway/Merchant Account: With Vikaza you will get both. If you use the Vikaza setup you won't have to worry about merchant accounts and gateways. You can setup your website and payments features in 10 minutes and you will be ready to collect payments and registration online instantly. When your customers pay online we collect the funds and transfer it back to you every 15 days either by check (mail) or bank direct deposit. The best part is there are no setup fees, monthly fees or long-term contracts. You will be charged a small convenience fee for every tranaction that occurs on your website. This convenience fee includes the credit card processing fees and Vikaza service fees.

This setup is hassle free and is currently being used by several of our clients. This would work perfectly for seasonal sports organizations and groups.

Option 2 - Other Gateway/Merchant Account: An alternate setup is to use your own merchant bank account and payment gateway. First step is to contact your bank and talk to them about internet merchant account setup. The bank will establish the credit card processing rates. You should be able to negotiate your rates based on the volume of your transactions.

Second, you need to contact the payment gateway company and setup a gateway account. Currently Vikaza only supports Authorize.Net gateway. You can contact Authorize.net and provide details about your intenet merchant account. They should be able to setup a gateway account within a day. Authorize.net charges a monthly fees to create your own account.

Once you are setup with your own Authorize.net payment gateway account login into your organization website hosted on Vikaza and begin the registration/payment feature setup. In the 'Payment Gateway' tab under supported gateways select 'Authorize.net Gateway' and click continue. In the next screen enter the login and key provided to you. Test if the connection is establised. Voila! you ready to start collect payments online.

This setup would work well for organizations or businesses that run all year and have transactions every month. Everytime your customer pays online on the Vikaza website the funds get transferred to your own bank account. Vikaza would send you an monthly invoice for using the service.