Credit Card Processing- Buying Advice- Qualifying for Merchant Accounts

To acquire a merchant account, you will have to submit a merchant account application and read and accept the Merchant agreement. This is a legally binding contract; hence, the terms and conditions of the merchant account provider must be clearly understood. Also, the terms of merchant agreements are non-negotiable. Following this, there are several steps that must be followed for a merchant account to be approved. To set the expectations straight, whatever your merchant account provider may tell you, it takes a minimum of 24 hours for the actual merchant account to go live. Here are the steps:-

• Submission of application for a merchant account.
• Revision of Application to ensure it is complete and without errors.
• The application is manually entered into the processor's underwriting system.
• You may receive an instant approval or your application is placed in the underwriting department's queue.
• The application is reviewed by an underwriter.
• If any additional information is required, a procedure is followed to acquire that data.
• Finally, you will receive the approval for your application and your software, payment gateway, and credit card terminal will all be set up
• You can start accepting credit cards immediately.

While your application for a merchant account is being processed following the aforementioned steps, a merchant services provider will also make sure that you are a legitimate business that will not leave them liable for fraudulent charges. For this a background check will have to be conducted. The merchant account provider will also check the dependability of your business to ascertain whether your business is likely to have a high incidence of chargebacks on your merchant accounts or not.

Secondly, a merchant account provider would like to check the type of credit card transactions that your company performs before they give you a merchant account. In case you have a brick-and-mortar store, you are going to carry out card present transactions, in which the card is swiped through the credit card processing terminal. A signature of the customer is also obtained on the receipt. Hence, this kind of transaction is much safer than card-absent transactions that take place by phone, by mail or over the Internet. Being a higher-risk merchant may affect your chances of getting a merchant account application approved.

Finally, your prospective merchant account provider would like to verify with your older providers if any, about old statements. This helps them to better gauge your charge and chargeback volume.

Don not fall victim to the marketing gimmicks that talk to almost 100% approval rate. Instead, focus on providers who help you address any deficiencies in your credit score or can show a history of working with businesses like yours.

For more information, visit Credit Card Processing and Merchant Account Services.