What to Look for in a Merchant Account Provider
It’s essentially impossible to run a retail store or restaurant nowadays without providing customers with ways to make payments via credit card. Even street and food truck vendors are beginning to offer options for credit card payments using credit card terminals or with a mobile point of sales system (mPOS).
But in order to accept credit card payments, every business needs to have a merchant account. This involves an agreement between you, a bank, and a credit processing company that allows you to accept credit card payments and have the funds from these transactions deposited into your bank account.
Merchant Services Providers
When looking around for a merchant services provider who can supply you with point of sale terminal systems you may want to find one who can also provide you with a merchant account. Companies like Swift Payments offer affordable options when it comes to credit card processing, debit card processing, and merchant accounts.
They also provide products such as credit/debit card terminals, as well as wireless, touchscreen, mobile, virtual, and countertop POS systems – they even offer e-commerce gateway solutions. For retail stores and restaurants, you’ll want to consider POS systems that come with software that will help you manage your business better with features that allow you to track inventory and sales, as well gain helpful financial insights.
A number of businesses are using these kinds of solutions in order to help them manage and streamline their everyday operations better, improving sales and performance overall. Without this kind of business-enhancing technology, you won’t be able to provide the same kind of service to your customers and may lose out to the competition.
Features They Offer
As your merchant services provider you can expect to see simpler, more affordable POS systems that are easy to use as well as to train your staff on. You’ll also receive your merchant account with the following benefits:
- Free daily deposits into the bank account of your choice
- 24/7 technical support by phone
- Complimentary access to Merchant Connect, an online platform which allows you to view statements and other information about your account
- No cancellation fees
- No statement fees
- No contract
- Transparent billing
You’re bills are determined via a pricing platform called Cost+ Pricing where when you process a transaction the interchange fee (from Visa or MasterCard) is passed directly to you. While every merchant service provider in the industry receives this fee at the same price, most usually over-complicate things with complex rate structures and long-term contracts.
You won’t see that here; instead, you can expect the direct charge of interchange on top of a set fee. For example, if a transaction has an interchange cost of 1.25% then you would be charged 1.25% plus a set rate of 0.15% – meaning you get a true rate of 1.40%.
It’s That Simple
So when choosing someone to provide you with a merchant account, make sure you are going with a company that offers true transparency with their pricing structure. If you’re not careful, you could end up paying way more than you should be.