What Kind of Merchant Account Do you Need

When you are getting ready to get a merchant account for your business you will usually find that you can get such an account through an Independent Sales Organization ("ISO"). This ISO, who has agreements with merchant banks, will help you fill out an agreement that goes to a merchant bank for underwriting. Getting one of these merchant accounts is a lot like getting a loan from a bank. You have to fill out the application and then let underwriting at the bank review the data you put on the application. They will decide whether your business is worthy of a merchant account, based on the information that you give them in the application

As technology has moved on, it is now necessary to decide what kind of merchant account your business requires. If you have a storefront where you sell products to customers who visit your store, then you would need a point-of-sale ("POS") merchant account. If you have an online business, you would need an Internet merchant account. Some businesses have two merchant accounts, one for the store and one for the website. Of course you will be using different technology to accept credit cards in a store than what you will use to take credit cards through a website. In the store you will use a credit card terminal to "swipe" most of the credit cards. On the website you will use a payment portal to accept secure credit card transactions through the website. Both of these technologies are very secure in protecting the credit card transactions as they are electronically submitted to the banking system.