I've been posting around different forums and a lot of people say that you need a good credit history to get a merchant account and low fees. I was just wondering how much harder it is to get a merchant account with no credit history? Are costs really that much higher until you're recognized as a business that can be trusted? I'm thinking about going around to the different banks and finding out information on their merchant accounts, but I wanted to see your guys/gals opinions as well. Thanks in advanced. P.S. I don't want to use a third party such as PayPal.
One think that I know that you should have legal business registered in a country to get merchant account rather than the credit history as eligibility for merchant account, if I am not wrong. You should check with following payment processors and apply for merchant account. worldpay chronopay 2checkout moneybookers protx multicards
I think you should try NOC as a Merchant Program they don't charge you only pay for results they handle everyhting from processing to payments
Depending on your monthly turnover then you should go for one of the major credit card processors around, like Pago or Wirecard. If it is startup business or you only do a limited amount of turnover then just go with paypal or some of the other mentioned in this thread.
Yeah. that depends on your requirement and location best to check with few processors discussed in this thread and chose one that meet your specific requirement with lowest charges.
You can sometimes still get a decent merchant account without great credit. It depends on what type of business you are setting up more than personal credit. Open bankrupcies or being on the TMF are normally the only full stops for a merchant account. Most of the fees for US merchant accounts are going to be about the same. Only with a really bad provider are you going to see a huge difference in fees. Also, what is fairly common, is that you can open a merchant account and establish some processing history. After a year or so, you should have enough history to negotiate a lower rate, or get setup with another company with lower fees. If you plan to do this, just make sure you don't have a termination fee or that your initial contract isn't for more than a year. Also, look closely at the fees other than the processing fee, because those are what makes the difference on your bill at the end of the month. Every payment company that was listed above is a 3rd party processor, and seeing how you didn't want to use one, those are probably not where you should start looking.
These are basically IPSPs (Internet Payment Service Provider) or a 3PP.. You are using their merchant account to accept credit cards on your website. Protx is actually an electronic payment gateway similar to LinkPoint, Payflow, Authorize.net/Cybersource, etc that most merchants in the United States are familiar with. Assumption: You are in the United States. Usually the only time when your credit history will come into play is when you want more than $30,000 a month in volume. You are usually approved for a merchant account if you want less than $30,000 a month almost immediately, even before your personal credit history comes into play. The discount rate should be fairly low unless you have some pretty bad credit history, but these are in extreme cases. No credit history will usually not have any effect on your discount rate.
Why don't you want to use PayPal? I started off with the merchant account with my friendly local bank... but all the monthly fees, commissions and gateway fees were costing me too much, so I decided to use PayPal instead about a year ago. I am quite happy with them now. Less expense definitely. Do you have any particular reason why you don't want to use them?
A lot of people don't like Paypal for various reasons. Usually once you have been burned by Paypal, that is all it takes. I spoke with one gentleman actually this past week and he runs through some high volumes ($1,000 - $2,500) through them, the usual is about $750. He has never ran into any problems with them. His main issue was that they change his discount rate depending on the monthly volume that he did the previous month. Usually he paid 2.9%. This can be good for some people, but also consider that the time it takes you to sign into Paypal and get your money. And there are others like him, who have gone years without any problems. But Paypal is a fairly large customer base with a lot of them being younger than 18 (which is against their TOS). So when Paypal freezes their account, instead of working with Paypal, they go into forums to complain. I have not figured out yet what they are hoping to accomplish with this, except just to complain. I guess that is what makes all those sites like Paypal Sucks, RipoffReports etc so great. People will tend to complain more - I guess they hope it's like the squeaky wheel gets the grease.