Once you have your business plan and strategy in place, you may have to get a programmer to make customized payment software that will enable you to process payments. If you have an online business such as an e-commerce store, you will need to process online payments. What do you need to know about online merchant accounts and accepting online payments?
Accepting Online Payments
To help your business to accept virtual payments, you need to look into online merchant accounts for small businesses.
It is possible that the bank you have your corporate account with may just refuse you access to their online payment services. The checklist of preconditions is sometimes endless, and you will do well to ensure you satisfy all the requirements before applying to any bank.
You will need to provide the bank with details that include: the nature of your business, where you expect the cash to flow in from, explain the details of all your products and services, assure the bank that you will deliver the products and services, explain your terms and conditions for online transactions, give a detailed estimate of your turnover, how many credit card or debit card transactions you are expecting.
You will also need to give the bank details of the secure server you intend to use, and if you do not own it you are likely to be turned down. The list goes on and on.
In the end, many online merchants choose to set up an online merchant account with a third-party service provider. This is invariably free to set up and with the least trouble.
Setting up your site to accept online payments is in fact, easier and faster using free payment processors than it is applying to a bank.
What Are The Security Risks Of Online Merchant Accounts?
Online security has advanced a great deal in the past ten years or so. Online merchant solutions have taken the best advantage of this advancement in technology by allowing many online businesses to take advantage
of the convenience of accepting payments online and delivering goods to their customers without actually meeting them.
However, as with every positive point to any development, there are a few negatives as well. Though merchant transactions on the internet have improved to prevent online theft, popularly referred to as ‘cyber theft’, there are ‘gurus’ in the field of software development who would rather lend their expertise and knowledge to hacking or breaking into online businesses and online payment processors to steal and plunder.
Many online merchant establishments have experienced their digital products, such as PDF files, music, video, and what is not being downloaded by cybercriminals who have somehow managed to circumnavigate their secure payment gateways, thus causing a loss to the online merchant establishment.
Many online payment processors have also experienced theft by people breaking into their client’s accounts and transferring cash online. Online credit card fraud is also nothing new to online merchant transactions.
The answer to preventing online merchant fraud is to use a reliable service that has proven its expertise in online merchant solutions. They will have to have honed their skills in developing SSL technology. This is an acronym for Secure Socket Layer technology. SSL encrypts the data being transmitted over the net and is almost impossible to decipher.
This actually reduces online fraud considerably. If you have a reliable developer to create your software for you, you can proceed with your plans of setting up an online merchant account and cash in on many deals your competitors are profiting from at the moment.