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9 Things to Look For In a Payment Gateway

Tag: international payments

9 Things to Look For In a Payment Gateway
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

9 Things to Look For In a Payment Gateway

If you are setting up an e-commerce store, one of the most important things you will be looking for is a payment partner who is going to help you enable the whole payments process.

With the right payment partner, your customers will be able to pay you easily and is more likely to come back to your website. There is just one small problem – how do you choose the right payment gateway?

With the market cluttered with several payment gateway options, it might be hard to choose the right one. In order to choose the right processor, you should do some homework and consider some points that are relevant to your business needs.

So in this article, we are going to explain 9 important things to be considered before you choose your payment partner.

  1. Look into location and incorporation details

Most of the times, the ideal payment gateway for you should be the gateway that is from the same location/country, your business is incorporated in. The corollary is also true.  For example, if you want a European payment gateway for your business, you need to incorporate in Europe itself.

  1. What’s the pricing and the providers’ fees?

It is extremely important to know the fee structure of your payment processor, if your business model is extremely price sensitive. Most of the fintech companies fall into this group and a slight variation in prices can alter their profits and may even turn it into loss.  Don’t get carried away by the advertisements that announce lowest fees or discounts, as it just might act as a catch to attract clients. Find a payment gateway provider that offers transparent fee structure without any surprises afterwards.

  1. What’s the technology

The bottom line is that you should choose a payment gateway that is supported by robust technology. This should not only offer simple, user-friendly solutions but also protect all financial transactions against fraud.  Also, your payment gateway should be secure enough to protect all your customer’s data and also have lower processing costs.

  1. How good is the support

Operating in a global market involves many unexpected and occasional incidents that can be bad for your business. That’s why support is considered to be a crucial factor to instantly fix the problems you face. Support should be simple and hassle free and ticketing system should be robust and fast.

  1. Does the operator offer international payments?

Check whether your payment gateway accepts international payments. If you are a growing business which is looking for selling to the global customer in the future, you might want to go with payment gateway which accept international currencies and offers alternative payment options. While local payment providers might be cheaper in certain cases, global payment gateways like PayTabs come with extremely attractive features like multi-currency payments, acceptance of a variety of cards, settlements and alternative payment arrangements. The latter is probably the better option if you are looking for revenue from around the world.

  1. What are the safety and security features

It is extremely important to ensure the safety and security of your customers, while they purchase online.  Maximum frauds happen while your customers try to make payments online.  There are different ways of protection that a processor can implement such as 3D secure payments, verified by Visa, and token system etc. Your gateway should always follow the guidelines of PCI to minimize the chances of frauds.

  1. Regular payments

If your business model requires short-term payments and settlements, it is ideal to go for a processor that doesn’t expect you to wait too long. Check the cost of the transfer and make sure that the fees are not too high. Always check what your payment gateway is charging for wire transfer. Some gateways charge a low fee and some might ask you to pay a higher fee.

Make sure that the rolling reserves are kept to a minimum. Rolling reserves is a kind of money that a payment processor or a bank can keep with themselves for a period of three to six months as security money against possible charge-backs.

  1. Does it allow invoicing

It might make sense to go with a payment gateway which offers built-in invoicing services. This not only makes it easier for you to raise instant invoices for the customer but also eliminates the need to move to another platform for invoicing.

  1. Reporting features

Another important thing to check is whether your payment partner is offering detailed reporting services. Once your business starts, you will want to review the transactions, review chargebacks in any, or do an analysis of any extra charges that you might have incurred while using the gateway. Try to go with a gateway that offers a better user experience.

There might not be a “perfect payment gateway” that fits the needs of every business. But its worth going the extra mile in order to find your right payment partner since a bad choice will not only cost you money but also your customers. The one thing to probably always keep in mind is the security aspect. The right partner will help you provide all the necessary tools for helping your business grow.

6 years ago
Cashless in India
Mohab Super Merchants 0

Cashless in India

Sleepless in Seattle: Remember the Hollywood movie from the 90s starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. As it turns out, it was not a very happy story, as the protagonist grieves his wife’s death and he cannot sleep after moving base from Chicago to Seattle.

On the contrary, given the Digital India revolution and the growing adoption of multiple forms of digital payments in India, it is definitely a good time to be Cashless in India.  The current revolution of digital payments stretches much beyond being only as a result of demonetization. The consumer’s adoption rate couple with the government’s push in creating a cashless economy has been unprecedented.

Despite all the hoopla around digital payments and going cashless, India still remains low in banking penetration and cash has been the de-facto transaction medium for most in the country. Hence the scale of the revolution is yet to realize its full potential.  The government’s continued push towards digitization through BHIM, UPI and Payments Banks has really scaled the digital payments landscape in India.  It’s all about financial inclusion through digitization. Needless to say, there’s a lot of ground to be covered, given India’s population but the growth trend puts the country on track to achieve its digital payments ambitions.

You must be wondering that if there’s so much action happening in the domestic digital payments space in India, what about international digital payments? Well, the scope on the international payments space is exciting as well from an Indian perspective. India is one of the fastest growing markets for cross border payments, recording an estimated volume of $260 bn+ in exports and $400 bn+ in imports*.

We at PayTabs provide you with a seamless payments solution that helps you accept payments in multiple currencies and the amount gets credited to your account in INR. Sign up for a free demo to experience the power and flexibility of our solution.

*Data Source: Economic Times

7 years ago
6 Factors Driving Indian E-Commerce
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

6 Factors Driving Indian E-Commerce

The Indian E-commerce scene has exploded in recent times, with many different segments being created by niche players, with the most nascent being Foodtech. India has come a long way with respect to e-commerce and the evolution has been really rapid, befitting the world’s fastest growing large economy.

The growth of e-commerce is tremendous in Indian context, considering that traditionally India has been a cash oriented economy with offline retail stores driving purchases by the consumer. Currently, India adds 6 million new consumers* to the e-commerce industry, every month. This scale of growth is unprecedented in any other market and goes to show the potential of the Indian e-commerce market.

The following key drivers of Indian e-commerce are almost unique to India, as some of these points are intrinsic to Indian consumer behavior:

  • Convenience & Trust: It took some time for e-commerce players to gain the trust of the consumer and shed the initial belief that products available at some of the largest online marketplaces were used products. This is because for a long time, the Indian e-commerce space was dominated by e-bay which used to sell used products in India, operating in a marketplace environment. However, as prominent players entered the market backed by a solid supply chain and great marketing & communications, the quintessential Indian consumer realized the convenience of e-commerce and developed a trust with the portal.

 

  • Price: A typical Indian buyer is very price conscious and bargains heavily. They are always looking out for deals. This perception is widely regarded as being true. Price has always been the trump card for Indian e-commerce players as most of the products that are available online are cheaper than the same products available offline.

 

  • Payment Options: With the advent of digital wallets and UPI (Unified Payments Interface), the payment options have grown over the years. Earlier on, most e-commerce players grew because of the success of the Cash on Delivery (COD) model, which was rather prevalent in India, due to a large amount of Cash being circulated in the economy. It is only in recent times, due to the demonetization drive, Indians have jumped on to the electronic payments bandwagon.

 

  • Digital India: The government of India’s Digital India initiative has been a key factor in enhancing internet penetration across the country, which has led to a whole host of services being digitally delivered. The invariable result of increase in internet penetration has been the fact that apart from accessing essential services digitally, the consumer has taken to online shopping and online payments, big time.

 

  • Domestic Consumption: Any world renowned economist will tell you that the India growth story has been driven by domestic demand and the high consumption of the ever aspirational Indian consumer. The obvious macroeconomic scenario had to play out in the e-commerce space as well.

 

  • Language: Most e-commerce portals in India are in English and that has played a big role in the growth of the industry, as India has the largest English speaking middle class population. Moreover, the regional language versions of popular sites have nonetheless played a critical role in the growth of large scale e-commerce portals.

Despite the growth of Indian e-commerce, much remains to be tapped in terms of SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises) hopping onto the online space and selling internationally, as in exporters. PayTabs can help you make the online shift and help your business go global. Now, it is easy to receive online global payments. Explore now and Sign up for a free demo!

*Data Source: Wikipedia

7 years ago
Currencies Form the Core of Payments
Mohab Super Merchants 0

Currencies Form the Core of Payments

It’s a no-brainer! Everybody out there knows that to buy or sell any product or service through any medium, one would need a transacting currency. The status quo on most transactions, whether online or offline, is the fact that you would need to pay in the currency of the country where you are buying the product from, even if it is online.

But, with the advent of global e-commerce, the status quo on currencies while transacting becomes a deterrent. It is largely due to the willingness of most payments solution providers not to deal with the cumbersome regulations in place in most countries which provide a hindrance for multi-currency payments being made online.

It is not as much as a regulation problem, as it is a regulatory acceptance problem. Most regulators, as in central banks haven’t yet figured out a way to regulate payments in foreign currencies made in multiple currencies through the digital medium. Barring the most accepted currency, i.e. the US Dollar, which is largely used as a de-facto foreign exchange currency across the world, regulators are mostly wary about international payments made in other currencies, especially online.

Having said that, most developed countries and a few forward looking emerging economies have updated their regulations to allow for payments in multiple currencies. However, contrary to popular belief, there aren’t many providers in the market, who possess a seamless global payments processor.

PayTabs has always been ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and one of our key differentiating factor is the fact that we accept 160+ currencies on our platform.

To learn more about our payments platform, click here. Moreover, if you are interested, you can sign up for a free demo as well.

We encourage you to comment on this post, by providing your insights and viewpoints.

7 years ago
The State of Global Payments: Part 2
Mohab Super Merchants 0

The State of Global Payments: Part 2

In one of our earlier posts, we touched upon the upsurge in non-cash transactions across the world and how developing countries are driving the growth of online/digital payments. We looked at some hard numbers from Capgemini’s World Payments Report which justified the growth in non-cash transactions across the world.

In this piece, we will look at key trends that are key to driving global payments in 2017 and the future:

  1. Technology vis-à-vis International E-Commerce: It is indeed true that international transactions have increased in recent times but the subsequent pace of developing fast, secure, transparent and efficient solutions have not quite been there. Currently, there’s a need for more payments solution to cater to the growth in international e-commerce.

 

  1. Need for Agility and Pace: Whilst the growth in FinTech investments over the years, there is currently a tremendous hunger in the marketplace, for companies to deliver more instant gratification moments in terms of payments and flexibilities in payments solutions. Which means different types of payments solutions accepting multiple currencies.

 

  1. Enterprise Payments: As per the World Bank’s Cost of Sending Remittances report, checks are still prevalent in most organizations across the world, especially smaller organizations. As of 2015, 90% of small organizations across the world, used checks for making payments, primarily to freelancers and commission based sales force. Large banks and credit card technology companies still dominate the international payments space, which is plagued by complexities and very high fees. There’s a huge scope for new age payments solutions providers to solve some pressing international payments issue in the B2B space.

 

  1. The case of the Unbanked: According to a Citibank report in March 2016, there are still 2.8 billion unbanked and underbanked people in the world, especially in developing countries, where FinTech solutions have outpaced the penetration of legacy banking. The key to the growth of FinTech and Payments solutions has been because of the huge growth in mobile payments, aided by the tremendous penetration of mobile in developing countries.

 

  1. Banks and Technology need to be friends: Banks need to accept and recognize the fact that digital payments can do much more than automation. Digital and online payments solution providers shouldn’t view banks as their adversaries, rather recognize the value that they are adding to the global financial system, thereby cultivating opportunities for greater innovation and efficiency through collaboration.

 

  1. Transparency: There’s been a paradigm shift in the needs of the global payments market, in the context of more transparent pricing, flexibility in integrations and innovative customer service. It is an imperative for global payments solution providers to track all transactions in the entire payment process/cycle to ensure transparency.

 

Therefore, as you can probably gauge that despite growth in FinTech and digital payments, there remains a lot of opportunities/gaps in the marketplace that needs to be fulfilled/filled.

We would love to hear your viewpoints in the comments below and click here to experience a new economy payments solution that truly manages to fill existing gaps and adds tremendous value for your business.

Click here to read State of Global Payments: Part 1

7 years ago