Merchant Accounts and Payment Gateways
Merchant Accounts
Although internet-based transactions fall into the same category as mail-order/telephone-order sales (i.e. "cardholder not present"), you need an internet merchant account rather than a "standard" merchant account to accept internet payments. If you already have a merchant account from your bank, you should request approval from them to accept transactions across the internet.
Your bank will issue you with an internet merchant account number after setting up your account. Please let us know this number as soon as possible, as we need to enter it into our system before you can go live.
Payment Gateways
To process website transactions into a payment into your merchant account you will need to use a Payment Gateway. We recommend Protx and SecPay, both of these make a charge for accepting payments and you can see the current charges on their websites, typically £20 a month or 3.5% per transaction (NB standard merchant account charges then apply once the funds are transferred to your merchant account) .
Once you have been issued with your internet merchant account number you will need to sign up for your online gateway account via their online forms, once this is complete we can integrate the payment form on your website and you can accept online payments. Our charge for integrating a payment gateway is £195 plus VAT
PayPal
If you have not got an existing Merchant Account or are having difficulties getting your bank to provide you with one then we recommend Paypal. This is easy to sign up for and you do not need a separate payment gateway. The charge for integrating Paypal is £195 plus VAT
Paypal also offer a simple payment button for accepting one off payments for your website, which we can add for £20 plus VAT.