Online Payment Guide

For many small businesses, the prospect of adding a new way to collect payments, with a possibly unfamiliar technology, can seem intimidating. Most small businesses want to offer their customers more flexible payment types, but they are wary of the costs, security, and requirements to set up such customer conveniences.

The bottom line is, small businesses owners have questions, and aren’t sure who to ask.

Based on what we’ve learned from our customers, here are the Top 6 questions and concerns preventing businesses from setting up online payments:

1. “We are too small of a company.”
As much as it may seem, the rule is not be big or go home. By incorporating online payment processing functionality, such as email invoicing and recurring billing, at a lower cost than legacy billing processes, small businesses can actually leverage their collection process and compete with larger businesses in some facets.

2. “Our customers won’t use online payments enough to justify the monthly fees.”
On the contrary, consumers are driving the creation and adoption of such billing services. Over 50% of all US households pay at least one monthly bill online and wish more businesses offered the convenience.* Even non-profits like churches and fundraising organizations are adopting online payments, and realizing increased donations and sales.

3. “Do we need to have a website?”
No. Some online payment processing providers also provide a securely hosted online payment page that is even customizable to look like your business.

4. “Do we need a tech person to setup and handle the system?”
No. As the technology in payment processing advances, setting up online payments is becoming easier and easier to do. Not only do you not need a website, but you don’t need any technology experience. When inquiring with a company, be sure to ask about the setup process.

5. “Are online payments secure?”
Yes. Almost 85% of identity theft cases are due to offline transactions because consumers who pay bills electronically expose their information to fewer people. Additionally, using risk management features in a PCI compliant online payment solution, including adjustable fraud settings and user-based processing limits, protect both the merchant and customer.

6. “I don’t know if it will be advantageous for me to set up online payment processing.”
Most of our customers experience faster collection cycles and increased sales or donations after setting up online payment processing. In addition, they experience time and cost savings by drastically reducing the amount of paper invoices and checks they have to output and receive. I don’t know of a business that wouldn’t want to discover a service that enables it to follow the old mantra to “cut costs and increase efficiency.”

And if you’re still wary, check if the service you’re interested in offers a money back guarantee. Then you have nothing to lose by giving online payment processing a shot.

Nothing can be more advantageous than having an online payment gateway for money transfer services integrated in your website. With an online payment integrated, your visitors get a first hand opportunity to buy from your website. However, the most important aspect in a payment gateway is security.

How can you test the utility of any online payment gateway?

1. Any secured online payment gateway should be able to deliver real time transaction facilities. You cannot process an order now and get the money transferred after a day.
2. An online payment gateway should be interoperable. A system that works securely in Windows environment but fails in any other environment isn’t that worthy.

Security of online payment gateway

Security should be the most important determinant of an online payment gateway. To ensure that the payment gateway that you are utilizing is secured, you need to do a bit of research, for which some first hand knowledge and education is necessary. The best way would be to read about technology innovations related to online payment gateways and enquiring about security features offered by online payment gateway providers.

Some security features that work

Digital signature - This is one of the safest ways to ensure security. A digital signature makes system literally hacker proof even if the id is hacked. Hence, opt for an online payment gateway that offer digital signature.

Dynamic IP protection - Dynamic IP protection allows complete security as the system checks and verifies the same IP used in the previous successful session for any further online money transfer request.

128-bit security with SSL - this ensures that all transactions are automatically encrypted from the users’ browser with an encryption key length of 128-bits which is used extensively all over the Internet and is one of the highest browser encryption presently available.

An online payment gateway is typically a service would allow you to transact monies with another party. An online payment gateway will take care of various financial systems involved in an online money transfer, including making payments for goods and transferring the money to the beneficiary conveniently. Some online payment gateways offer additional facilities for transferring money, sending invoices, making payments for invoices, etc online, through emails, mobile phones, etc.

Money transfer through an online payment gateway is the most affordable option that technology has made available for us via debit cards, credit cards. Today, there are a significant number of online payment gateway service providers offering fast, secured, and guaranteed worldwide money transfer services. Choosing an online payment gateway provider is important. Ideally, you should scrutinize security measures offered by each and every online payment gateway before finally opting for one.

The choice of payment gateway and compatibility are important decisions. An online payment that is compatible only with a few gateways or is complex for common people to understand won’t be of much help to you.

Any online payment gateway you choose should manage security on an ongoing basis. Remember, security is an ongoing aspect and needs to be upgraded continuously. For example today a 128-bit Digital Certificate is the highest level of security that any online payment gateway can provide; however, it may not be the same tomorrow… hence the need to upgrade.

Most authentic online payment gateways of today maintain their operations in state-of-the-art datacenters, which are strongly secured using the latest security methods. These are also completely compliant with major security initiatives of various sites, some of which include Visa Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP), MasterCard Site Data Protection (SDP), and Discover Information Security and Compliance (DISC). Some online payment gateways are certified as PCI Level 1 service providers.

Hence, whenever you are considering opting for an online payment gateway, you should check out that the above steps are religiously being followed.

As payment systems and currency of the Internet is becoming more and more popular and more diverse users start to take advantage of their services, some of the most well established names in the industry are very likely to start charging people transactions. In fact, some companies are already engaged in this practice. Thus, many people are asked this question, a payment system on the network is too expensive?

Many people agree that they are. While the Internet exchange programs have been developed for ease of use, as well as safe and secure means of transferring money from one person to another, they have become a prime target for online fraud and illegal hacking of internet activity. This caused a lot of big names in the beef industry to network security than ever before - and it could cost them millions of dollars at the end. This additional cost, of course, passed to you and me, consumers in the form of fees and charges for use of the services that we may have enjoyed now for free.

This issue has caused quite a uproar in the Internet community, as well as regular users of online payment sites are concerned. While users will not want to assume the risk of switching to the smaller network payment system, which may be less secure, they will have no choice but to pay all necessary fees to avoid cancellation of their accounts - many of which are several years ago. Because of this, many people are very angry at a popular, well established online payment company, and rightly so.

It is not a good practice for companies to begin charging money for services they provide to their clients after the totally free, but in this case simply do not have a choice. Not only companies are forced to take additional security measures to counter any potential hackers, ever-growing popularity of some of these sites online payment is a problem - some of them too much too fast to attract customers. This is a good problem to have for business, which means increased profits. Nevertheless, these companies are now forced to upgrade and expand its Internet servers, and sometimes even to buy new ones. This can be quite costly, not only to acquire a simple, but save for a while as well. Again, you can be confident that this additional cost will be passed down the line for our customers - and there is not much we can do about it.
The average cost of all were on the rise lately, and internet service costs are no different. Experts agree that the cost of these services will continue to grow at a steady pace, and we may find ourselves paying for additional services, which we used once for free. As long as you understand that these additional charges to the companies that your information is kept safe for the proper Internet security, but you can sleep a little better at night. Nobody likes to pay additional contributions, but in this case, the additional costs actually for extra protection.