Payment Gateway Comparison
To choose between payment gateways or to make a payment gateway comparison, there are a few things to consider before jumping in and making one of the most important decisions affecting your eCommerce business.
Credit card processing currency
Which currencies does the payment gateway support and do they have a PayFx currency converter built into their offering that clearly explains to cardholders how the currency conversion is taking place. eCommerce is often about trading internationally and it is imperative that when you are dealing with your customers, you give them the comfort that you are an international business and understand their currency.
Credit card processing security
Your payment gateway is dealing with sensitive information on your behalf and it needs to be secure. It is your payment gateway's job to make sure that the credit card processing information is secure and that they have embarked in becoming PCI compliant. PCI is an initiative that is being implemented worldwide to ensure that payment gateways are handling and storing sensitive information safely. So make sure when doing your comparison that your payment gateway of choice is taking PCI compliance seriously.
Acquiring banks supported
Make sure when you are doing your payment gateway comparison that your payment gateway is linked to a good selection of banks in case you want to negotiate better rates for your credit card processing from other acquiring banks. This will save you the hassle of doing another payment gateway integration which will cost you time and money and may put your website out of action if the changeover to another payment gateway is not smooth.
Alternative Internet Payment Solutions
When making your payment gateway comparison, it is useful to have other payment methods such as Ukash, FNB Cell PayPoint and others as an alternative to credit card. This is particularly useful in developing countries where credit card penetration is low. Also, it can be risky dealing internationally by credit card and there are some new payment methods for transferring money from one country to another economically and can guarantee you payment.
Downtime
This is an important point when doing a payment gateway comparison. What is the point of choosing a payment gateway based on price or functionality when its down half the time. Choose a payment gateway who does large volume airline credit card processing or casino credit card processing. These industries can't afford to be off line for credit card payments for one minute, so if you choose a payment gateway supporting the airline and casino industries you are pretty safe.
Fraud and Risk Management
Internet credit card fraud has increased exponentially, so in your payment gateway comparison, make sure they have a simple, effective and economical fraud and risk screening product like PayProtector to ensure that you are selling your services to the owner of the credit card and not some fraudster. Fraud and risk screening has become an essential part of your service, so don't take a chance - the cost of fraud and risk screening if you choose a good payment gateway will be a fraction of the cost of just one fraudulent sale.
Credit Card List Processing or Subscription Processing
If you are going to sell goods on mail order and want to upload a file every day or month for bulk processing or batch processing, then make sure they have a PayBatch product. Similarly, if you want people to pay you subscriptions monthly or quarterly then in your payment gateway comparison, make sure they have something like PaySubs where the payment gateway will automatically debit the credit card for you on the specified dates and times.
EBBP - Invoice for Payment By Credit Card
Electronic Bill Payment and Presentation is becoming more popular these days, so if you need to send bills and invoices out to your customers, then it is useful to have a product like PayBill where you can simply generate a bill which is automatically emailed to your customer and (s)he can click and pay you securely by credit card and ensure that you and your customer get an email notification of payment.
Tenure and Track Record
A good test is how long has the payment gateway been in business for. Over the years, valuable experience is gained to ensure secure, effective and reliable processing of internet credit card processing. This experience can only be picked up over time and through experience. So when making a payment gateway comparison and choosing a payment gateway, choose one that's stood the test of time.
XML Control Over Your Credit Card Processing
If you are a big company and/or a high end developer and you would like to have absolute control over the look and feel and functionality of your credit card processing, then when choosing a payment gateway, make sure it has PayXML. This is where you pass the credit card information to the payment gateway in the background and the look and feel is entirely at your discretion. This is also great if you would like to do mobile credit card processing for example with mobile poker applications.
So the bottom line is that there are a lot of things to think about when doing a payment gateway comparison. Make sure that you go through the check-list above to ensure that your needs are met when making your final payment gateway comparison.
Date Created: 2009-12-08 |
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