Friday, August 29, 2008

The Customer Enters His Credit Card Information On The Merchant S Web Page

Category: Finance, Credit.

Merchant accounts are bank accounts specifically designed to accept credit card payments. To accept a credit card payment, a merchant first requires an Internet merchant account in a bank or financial institution.



Such payments can be made by customers at either the store itself through a credit card terminal or online through a shopping cart made in the web page of the company. After obtaining a merchant account, the merchant would require a payment gateway account. The customer enters his credit card information on the merchant s web page. This is basically the processing account, which verifies the authenticity of the credit card and then transfers the funds to the merchant account. This should take place on a secure web page, meaning that the information collected in this web page should be encrypted so that it cannot be read by any third party. The card processor verifies the information and determines the company that manages the customers credit card, and then transmits the billing request. Next, the shopping cart program then compiles the information and transmits the same to the credit processor, which is the payment gateway.


Upon receiving the request, the credit card company validates the accounts and ensures everything is in order. If the information is found to be authentic, the credit processor initiates the transfer of the funds to the merchant account. It then sends back an acknowledgement to the payment gateway. The merchants also have the choice of opting for a third party merchant account. Processing fees for third party merchant account providers are higher than of a personal merchant account. Here, the merchant account provider company collects the funds on the behalf of the merchant.


The processing of merchant accounts works in the same way for both merchant accounts and third party accounts. The customers enter their credit card details in the third party processors website and the rest of the process works the same way. The only difference is that instead of paying directly in the merchants website, the customers are directed to pay in the third party processor website. To get more details of how the credit card processing works and how you can customise and implement in your business, you can contact any reputed company which provides such solutions.

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