In the present marketplace, it is quite important for the business to accept the credit cards. In fact, credit card is a wonderful payment method especially in developed countries. By the credit cards, things become easy and for the business they are a benefit. Some of the benefits are fraud prevention and detection, no extra return check, money deposited directly into business bank account, higher security compared to the paper currency, comfort as far as accounting is concerned. If one wants to obtain card processing for business, it can be a daunting task. Know that three important parameters or facets of credit card processing are payment processor, payment gateway and merchant account.

A merchant account is a special bank account given by the bank allowing business to accept payments by electronic checks, debit cards, credit cards. One can visualize this account as a virtual bank account accepting the electronic money. The business can obtain merchant account in agreement with merchant services company. By the merchant services company, we mean the company that sells these accounts from much bigger banks. It also establishes contracts with the payment sellers. It also resells or provides payment gateway for tech support services and can be referred as one-stop-shop when it comes to the credit card processing.

By payment gateway, we mean an online program that replaces the swipe card terminal. The standard payment gateway permits business to log in a secure way to the respective online terminal, fill virtual terminal form with payment information of customer and charging of the credit cards online. Payment gateways generally supply programming API allowing online business to integrate credit card processing with ease along with shopping carts and online order forms. When the card is charged with the help of payment gateway, information is forwarded in a secure manner to the payment processor for verification and in case verified, the customer card is debited and merchant account of business is credited for the payment account. With any processing method, one has minimum 24 hours before the funds are actually deposited.

A payment processor is an important facet of credit card processing. It is a financial institution that is quite different from the merchant bank. The processors provide pre-authorization, post-authorization, refund services, fraud prevention to the companies accepting the credit cards. They will also be responsible for the fund distribution between the businesses and consumers. The merchant bank acts as fund receiver.