How To Accept Payments Online?

The eCommerce industry is expanding fast.

According to eMarketer's study, online shopping sales are expected to reach $3.9 trillion in 2020, surging by 16.5% from last year.

However, to benefit from this growth, eCommerce stores and all businesses handling transactions on the web have to use a financial service to accept payments online.

Businesses can do so with various payment solutions, such as payment gateways, e-wallets, and bank transfers, which we will explore in detail in this article.

What Is a Payment Gateway, and How Does it Work?

A payment gateway is a service that acts as a bridge between a merchant and its customers for transferring funds.

As an intermediary service, the gateway solution allows customers to choose between multiple payment methods (e.g., credit cards, bank transfers, e-wallets) and use the one they prefer to pay for their orders.

In exchange for the service, the processor charges a fee, which it deducts from each transaction before transferring the funds to the merchant.

Now let's see an example to explore how a payment gateway works in practice for card payments:

1. After adding the products into the cart, the customer uses the merchant's platform for the checkout process. Upon filling out the form with their data, the user selects a debit card as the payment method.
2. The payment gateway redirects the user to a separate page where they enter their debit card details. Alternatively, some merchant solutions allow customers to carry out the payment directly on the business' platform.
3. To keep the customer's funds safe, the payment gateway encrypts the transaction's data, which the service transfers to the payment processor.
4. The processor then forwards this data to the card network (e.g., Visa, MasterCard). After a successful fraud check, the card network sends a payment request to the financial institution that issued the customer's card.
5. After another round of fraud checks, the bank verifies whether the customer has enough funds on their card to cover the purchase. If everything is fine with the transaction, the financial institution accepts the request and informs the payment gateway of the decision.
6. The gateway service then processes the customer's transaction and distributes it to the merchant's account.

What Are Other Payment Solutions to Accept Payments Online?

Other than a gateway service, there are other payment solutions you can use to accept payments online.

Below, you can find the most popular online payment methods:

• Credit and debit cards: Credit and debit cards are popular payment methods that allow customers to settle their payments instantly. In exchange for being fast, card payments come expensive for merchants and end-users alike.
• Bank transfers: While they can take a few days to process (unless instant transactions are available), bank wire is a cost-efficient method to settle online transactions. However, this is only the case with domestic transactions. International bank transfers go through multiple intermediaries before reaching the recipient. As a result, they have increased costs and take more time to get processed.
• E-checks: As the digital version of paper checks, e-checks are popular payment methods in countries like the United States. Via an e-check, the sender authorizes the recipient to use a specific amount of funds in their bank account for the transaction. Digital checks are a form of ACH payments, an inexpensive bank transfer type in the US.
• Cryptocurrencies: Unlike bank transfers that are only processed on working days and during business hours, cryptocurrency payment networks operate continuously. In addition to featuring low fees, digital asset transactions execute fast, usually taking up to one hour to arrive at the recipient's wallet.
• E-wallets: With a focus on convenience, an e-wallet is a digital financial service where customers have to deposit funds in their accounts to transfer funds. For that, users can utilize multiple payment methods, which are Visa, MasterCard, UnionPay China, bank transfers, and cryptocurrency at the award-winning STICPAY solution. After funding their accounts, customers can use the provider's internal network to transfer money rapidly at reasonable prices.

What Is the Best Way to Accept Payments Online?

One way to accept payments for merchants is via credit or debit cards. But what if their customers want to use another method for the transaction?

To solve this issue, businesses could apply for merchant accounts at multiple gateway services. However, doing so is a tedious, resource-intensive process.

To avoid wasting time, a viable method is to choose a payment solution that features a wide range of payment methods.

The award-winning e-wallet service STICPAY is an excellent example.

As part of a global service with coverage for over 190 nations, STICPAY offers numerous payment methods for its users, including:

• Visa
• MasterCard
• UnionPay China
• Bank transfers
• Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum)

Furthermore, STICPAY has partnered with multiple financial institutions in Asia to reduce costs and speed up transfers.

As a result, in seven supported countries – including Indonesia, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea –, users have access to STICPAY's local bank wire service. The payment method allows customers to use their nation’s domestic banking network to deposit and withdraw funds from their accounts in a fast, cost-efficient way and without intermediaries.

Due to the surging demand, STICPAY plans to expand the local bank wire service's coverage to additional countries and regions shortly.

While STICPAY is an e-wallet service, merchants can also integrate it as a gateway solution to accept payments online. For that, the fintech solution provides an open API connection with its corresponding documentation.

It's crucial to note that all internal transfers within the STICPAY ecosystem are instant. While the company charges 1% for client-to-client transactions on the platform, merchants pay a competitive 2.5% + $0.3 fee for fiat and 1.8% for accepting cryptocurrency payments from their customers.

In addition to a sleek smartphone app for Android and iOS, customers can use STICPAY's web-based platform in 19 languages.

While convenience is a priority for STICPAY, the company also dedicates much effort to keep its e-wallet service secure.

To achieve that, STICPAY utilizes a variety of advanced anti-fraud and security measures – such as keeping user funds in segregated accounts with uninterrupted access – while requiring both merchants and customers to go through rigorous Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks.

Start Accepting Payments Online With STICPAY

To start accepting payments online, businesses have to register a merchant account at a payment solution.

After creating the account and submitting the necessary KYC and AML documents, STICPAY merchants will receive a merchant ID, which they can use to open multiple accounts in 29 national currencies and set up a payment gateway on their platforms via an open API connection.

Are you ready to get started?

Sign up for a merchant account at STICPAY now!

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to STICPAY's rockstar customer support team to answer your queries 24 hours a day.

Have you liked us on Facebook yet? Are you following us on Twitter and Instagram? Join STICPAY on LinkedIn!