Hi,

I've been in business for a little over a year now and since my volumes were initially small I've been using Paypal thus far. I've decided it's time to join the big boys and open a merchant account but am having trouble understanding how everything works. There seems to be so many providers offering as many different options and to be honest, it's left me a little bit confused. Can anyone offer an easy-ish to understand suggestion?
I'd like to stay away from companies that offer payment processing & merchant accounts as i've heard that they tend to be more expensive and cost is definitely a consideration. So I guess I'm looking at a payment processor and a merchant account with two different companies?
Any advice is much appreciated!!

Well you need a merchant account provider and an electronic payment gateway basically. If you are in the United States, you have a number of options.

For the gateways, some might charge a transaction fee, some might charge a percentage of the sale, some might not charge anything, and some might give you XX number of transactions per month.

The merchant account provider is usually going to charge a discount rate, authorization / AVS fee, monthly fee, and some might charge a few other fees. Usually, when it comes down to it, most are about the same.

If you are doing less than $30,000 a month, in the United States, and not selling anything high risk, a merchant account can usually easily be approved within 24 hours.

Hi Corey,

Thanks very much for your reply! I guess I do need a payment gateway and a merchant account but I'd like to keep them distinct if that's possible. I'm located in the UK so I'm guessing US banks aren't an option for me.

A friend of mine recently started using a company called First Atlantic Commerce that's based out of Bermuda..he uses them for payment processing. He seems happy with them but I haven't found any mention of them on any forums that I've looked. Is there any advantage to going with a small firm like fac as opposed to using someone like Authorize.net?
Also while looking at FAC's website I noticed that they talk about merchant accounts but aren't actually a bank themselves. Does this mean they'll help me open a merchant account or will I still have to do this on my own?

Once again, comments much appreciated. I'm new to this and want to make the right decision the first time around!

Authorize.net favors United States merchants. Not to say you can't have one but usually that gateway is compatible with United States merchant account providers. And to have a United States merchant account, you would need at least a United States bank account, United States address, and United States phone number.

Being in the UK, the gateway Protx might be one option for you to take a look at

Instabill.com offers merchant account services in UK and US. They have secure payment gateway and payment processing services worldwide. You might want to check out if your are interested in services for UK.

Finally figured it out and I've decided to go with First Atlantic Commerce after all. They offer a great bespoke service that suits me quite well and am using their 'Virtual Corporation' which helped get around the trouble of establishing a corporate entity to comply with Card Association regulations. I don't usually do this but I would definitely recommend them

http://www.firstatlanticcommerce.com/merchants/international_merchant_accounts.aspx

Cheers!

You don't need a corporation if you are a sole proprietorship

hello,

If you're doing high risk business you definitely need to go the offshore way. But of course there are pros and cons to that.

I've signed up with FAC ( http://www.firstatlanticcommerce.com/merchants/payment_gateway.aspx ) and am quite happy with the level of personaly service they've given me so far and as pointed out by someone on this thread I didn't have to open an account through them..just using they're gateway service.

Before opening any account, read card sharks. Fortunately, in the United States there are (easier) ways to verify the ISO / MSP