If you want to process credit cards over the Internet you'll need a special account specifically designed for that purpose. Because you never take physical possession of a credit card so that you can swipe it through a magnetic strip reader, both Visa and Mastercard use different criteria for evaluating risk and have different fee structures for card-not-present transactions. There are actually three components involved in establishing such an account:

• MERCHANT SERVICES - The service that allows any business to accept credit cards for payment and have the funds deposited directly into your bank account.

• PAYMENT PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY OR VIRTUAL TERMINAL SOFTWARE (For example, Authorize.net or Verisign Payflow) - permits you to accept and process credit card payments in a real time manner, right at your website. When your customer initiates a transaction, your web site sends credit card information to an Internet Payment Gateway/Virtual Terminal. The gateway passes the information on to the credit card processing network and then forwards the approval back to the virtual terminal in real-time. When configured properly, the entire process takes just seconds to complete.

• WEB SITE INTEGRATION - (we take care of this) The easy linking of your Web site with the payment processing technology.

We can help you easily establish a merchant account and the entire process will take just a few days depending on the account type.

For more information on the various aspects of Merchant Accounts click on the following links:

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