To run a successful business, an entrepreneur has a lot of things that have to be organized and ticked off. Making arrangements for your customers to pay is not as easy as it seems, whether you have a physical store or you run an online e-commerce one. Identifying the right payment processing service also takes effort and time.

Here are a few things about payment processing services that will help you out when you set up a business.

A payment processor is a company that handles all your payment transactions to enable your customers to buy your products. The payment processing services relay information from your customer’s debit or credit card to your bank as well as the customer’s bank. Nowadays there has been an increase in the identity and credit card thefts; it is the job of the payment processing services to provide security and see that this doesn’t happen. They also take care of accidental charges for you. However, they do not offer their services for free. For every accidental transaction, the company incurs a fee for having to transfer money from your account to the payment processor and then back to the customer’s account.

The key players involved in the whole payment processing services are as follows:

• The customer
• The business or the merchant
• The payment processor
• The payment gateway
• The customer’s bank/credit card company
• The business’s bank

A payment processor can generally be applied through the bank, online providers and companies such as PayPal. Just like wholesale options for products, there are wholesale options for payment processing services as well. To make sure that you get the lowest payment options, look for payment services listed under ‘interchange fees.’ Typically, most cards by Visa and Mastercard are accepted by payment processors. Moreover, you need to be aware of which payment processing service you go with as some of them might charge you higher fees.