Credit Card payment is currently the most common form of payment available on the internet when you purchase from a website.  Credits Cards are increasingly safer with it now being more dangerous to use your Credit Card in a retail store than it is in an online store.  All the major cards have worked tirelessly to ensure maximum safety for their customers. Some are friendly to all types of businesses, while others you may be flagged as "high risk processing" for selling products like cannabis or credit repair.

I remember when there were only a few options to choose from when deciding on which credit card system to use, now there are literally hundreds with some offering worldwide service and others country specific.  The big step to online sales was through the introduction of gateway systems which linked a person/business’s current merchant account they had with their bank to an online payment portal.  This was when businesses could first accept mass payments on the net.

Although there are many different credit card payment platforms available, I am yet to find one that does not offer one of either MasterCard or Visa as a payment option.  These two cards are the most widely used in the world and especially among internet users.  A provider would be foolish to think merchants would use their system if it didn’t have both MasterCard and Visa plus others such as American Express, Discovery and Diners.

Basically there are two paths you can go down when deciding on what payment method you are going to use when accepting credit cards;

•    Merchant account + Payment Gateway, and/or
•    3rd Party Merchant Account

I have gone through each one in more details under Payment Methods.