1st Merchant Account

An internet merchant account is an account with a bank or a financial institutions that enables you to process credit card payments from your web site. An internet merchant account is usually equipped with payment processing capabilities and is very similar to a normal storefront credit card processing terminal as it allows your customers to buy your products or services using one of the main important credit cards such as American Express, Visa, Master Card and Discover.

When you use an internet merchant account instead of swiping your clients' plastic card through a terminal or cash register, you offer to your customers the possibility to insert their credit card details on an online system that transmits in a secure environment their data for authorization and settlement.

How works in practice an internet merchant account? Practically you have three main layers: your web site, the payment gateway and the internet merchant account itself.

In order to accept credit cards your web site must integrate with the merchant provider and its payment gateway. Such internet merchant account integration is done in general through shopping carts and or secure payment pages that are activated through your web site. Through these pages your customers first shops through you web site and then use their computer keyboards to enter billing and shipping information and their credit card details. The total amount and related taxes (if any) are promptly calculated and upon confirmation of the order the payment processed. This is the first step for you to have an internet merchant account working properly. This kind of integration is easy to set as most internet merchant account companies provide you with detailed web site integration instructions.

The second layer of an internet merchant account is the payment gateway. The above data are sent from your website to the payment gateway processor. The payment gateway captures all the information and send them to a merchant account processing bank that forwards all data to the institution that issued the credit card. After all details are verified an authorization code is issued and forwarded back to the merchant account processing bank. At this step the payment gateway receives also the authorization code and processes the order. It seems complicated but it is done in real-time every day for millions of transactions and thousands of web sites.

The third layer of an internet merchant account is the merchant account itself. Not all financial institutions and banks are allowed or are able to offer you an online merchant account as the transactions conducted over the internet do not require a signature and are completely different from offline world. In practice this means that not all banks are willing or even able to provide you with an internet merchant account. Luckily the e-commerce sector has grown considerably and it still continues to grow.. Nowadays the possibilities are limitless and it is finally much easier to find a professional internet merchant account provider.