Content:
ONLINE LENDING
Not so long ago, in addition to the traditional issuance of loans in an offline store, it became possible to purchase on credit through online payment. The principle of this service is the same, it is necessary to apply for a loan in the process of paying for the order and, upon its approval, sign an agreement, and only then receive the goods.
From the technical point of view, the service works as follows:
PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR THE SALE OF DIGITAL GOODS
As you know, the field of eCommerce includes a wide range of options for the implementation of various products. Electronic services such as tickets, game currency, coupons and discounts are generally no different from physical purchases; from the store's point of view, they are exactly the same product. However, when buying something online that can be obtained instantly, without waiting for shipment or delivery, it is important to focus on the speed of processing the payment request.
For example, for payment by card in this case, the success of the payment should be considered the success of authorization and not wait for clearing. Note that many payment aggregators do this for all transactions. In addition, you should not use systems with a multi-step payment process, for example, invoicing by email or e-wallets with mandatory authorization before paying the bill.
It is worth noting that for the sale of digital goods, options designed to speed up payment are especially relevant:
PAYMENT SYSTEM WITH FLOATING PRICE SUPPORT
Stores whose services need to be calculated taking into account several parameters or a free price need a payment system where it is possible to specify the payment amount manually.
Such services are offered by all major aggregators and major online wallets such as W1 or PayPal.
However, there is a situation when, due to legal or technical conditions, it is necessary to transfer the entire contents of the basket. In this case, check with the potential payment partner if it is possible to transfer the payment amount separately for each transaction.
In general, when integrating via API, the store needs to specify only the total order amount. Forms for inserting into a site, work in the same way.
PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR HOUSING AND COMMUNAL SERVICES
Recently, housing and communal services services go online and increasingly provide the opportunity to pay for services without going to a bank branch or post office. In this case, the recipient of the housing and communal services or other similar organization is the same online store and can place a payment acceptance form on its website with a convenient tool: a card, an Internet wallet or through a terminal.
However, the more popular is the service of paying for electricity or other utility bills through client banks or payment systems. To make this possible, the provider accepting payment in favor of the recipient's housing and communal services must conclude an agreement for accepting such operations and simply transfer the funds received to the recipient's details.
And yet, you can make the process even more convenient: if the housing and communal services service has its own API, any payment system can not only accept payment, but also show debt, update meter data or set up automatic deposit of funds.
PAYMENT SERVICES FOR CROWDFUNDING
If you are starting the production of a product or service for a wide range of consumers, it is possible to raise funds for a faster start with the help of “whoever can” donations - a crowdfunding method. There are several types of such investment: after the start of sales, you give gifts to investors, for example, your product (in other words, this is a pre-order); sell% of your business for today's investment; or you give a guarantee of return on investment, take the funds, as it were, in debt.
Since this type of investment attraction is rapidly gaining popularity, a lot of special platforms have already been created on the network, where future businessmen briefly present their product, and potential investors “vote with the;”, i.e. donate using platform tools. The world's largest platform is Kickstarter, and it is worth canceling Boomstarter.
In terms of accepting payments, the crowdfunding platform acts as an ordinary online store, and you and your project are its partners. Therefore, the platform includes payment options like any other eCommerce project. However, the owner of a crowdfunding site needs to choose payment partners that support payment for goods with varying payment amounts and bulk payouts. Most likely you will need direct API integration.
If you are not interested in creating your own platform, but only in raising money to start a project, you do not need to connect anything. However, you can use donation collection services, for example donateMe or some solution, to chip in for a gift, erect a monument or do other good deed without starting a business.
In addition, it is possible to place on your website a button for collecting donations, by clicking on which anyone can replenish your account in a convenient way in the system that provided you with the button. Creation of such a form or button in the presence of an electronic wallet or account takes a few minutes, it remains to add it to your site. Modern payment aggregators provide such a service to small businesses, often it is enough to have an individual entrepreneur or even an individual account.
CONNECTING APPLEPAY TO THE STORE
The newest method of accepting payments was launched in many country - ApplePay, in other words, card payments without a card.
Those. the owner of an iPhone with NFC or AppleWatch can “touch” the device to the contactless terminal and the funds will be debited from the card pre-linked to the Wallet application. This means that all modern terminals for merchant acquiring that accept VISA PayVave and MasterCard PayPass, and in other countries CUP, AmEx and cards of some other IPS, can automatically work with ApplePay. Such payments are processed by your acquirer in the same way as any other card transactions - no additional commission or separate anti-fraud rules.
Plus, it is also possible to accept ApplePay online payments: a standardized button will appear on your service, when you click on it, the customer will only need to put their finger on the TouchID scanner! When paying from the site, the operation must be confirmed, for example, from a phone or MacPro of the latest version. Payment will take place instantly, no need to enter a huge amount of data and "shine" the card number.
How ApplePay works.
You can connect your website or application to the Apple system only using the well-documented official API, start here - https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/get-started/. You need to register an account, implement an API, test according to fairly strict standards, and then it is finally possible to open the possibility of instant payment for your customers. Apple support helps at all stages of the process, but in terms of timeline it is worth focusing on a month or more.
PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR A STARTUP
There is a lot of discussion in startup communities about how to quickly test the hypothesis about the willingness of potential customers to pay for a new idea.
If you only want to find out the demand for a product, it is best to publish on Kickstarter or its counterparts. Such a step will help to find funds for production, as well as give an answer about the interest of customers.
In the case when you need to start accepting payments as quickly and simply as possible, look at the popular electronic wallets: Yandex.Money, Qiwi and others. They all offer a special kind of business account. Alas, the commission rate will be high, around 3%.
If it is necessary to set up automatic withdrawal of funds, PayPal and WebMoney are more suitable for you with a lower commission - sometimes below 1%. In addition, these payment instruments allow you to accept payments not only from your country and, in addition, offer to set up the collection of a commission from the buyer. However, they require a fairly long registration and account verification procedure with a status that allows commercial transactions.
The second fastest way is to connect to a payment system aggregator. In the world, not all market giants work with individual entrepreneurs, and only a few are available to individuals. We wrote about them in detail in the relevant topic.
Foreign payment systems almost always require a legal entity in the EU or the country where the payment partner is located. It is worth paying attention to the Stripe solution: a service created by a startup for startups. Unfortunately, they do not work with individuals and do not accept payments within your country.
If your startup is built on the basis of a popular CMS, carefully study its capabilities and plugins. It may well turn out that all the minimum payment options are already built in and all that remains is to register in the payment system.
CHOOSING AN INTERNATIONAL PAYMENT SYSTEM
If you want to accept payments not only from your country, first of all you need to decide on the list of countries - recommendations on payment systems depend on this. For residents of yur country the connection of foreign payment systems is very complicated by bureaucratic red tape. Therefore, we recommend using the services of any major aggregator of payment systems that has already gone this way. Below you will find a list of the main foreign payment instruments.
When diving into the details, it becomes clear that in different countries the preferences of buyers and the coverage of the MEAs are slightly different.
If you are interested in how to choose between IPS (International Payment System) in terms of acquiring, then for your country there is not much difference - the division among cardholders is almost equal. In addition, there is Maestro, a fork of MasterCard. Alas, with a low cost of service, such cards are far from being accepted everywhere. It only makes sense to connect AmericanExpress, DinnersClub or JCB if you are targeting the American market. The difference between the Ministry of Railways at the level of the seller's choice of instrument is very conditional and consists primarily in antimonopoly regulation and different tariffs, as well as the geography of coverage. The regulation of IPU activities and their rules of operation are almost identical around the world.
When choosing an IPS, keep in mind that not every payment system will accept payments from non-standard cards. For example, the 16 digits we are used to are not the only option. You can find cards with 13, 15, 16, 18 and even 19 digits in the number. It depends on the IPS, the bank that issued the card and the banking product. The 4-4-4-4 mask is also not uniform. There are combinations 4-3-3-3, 4-6-5, 8-10 and some others.
AmEx cards almost always contain 15 digits in the number, DinersClub - 14, VisaVirtual - 15, and special products from any MPS can have 18-19 digits in the number.
Unfortunately, often an acquiring provider either does not accept cards other than Visa + Master, or requires the card number to be strictly 16 digits, which negatively affects the conversion if you are targeting foreign buyers.
ACCEPTANCE OF ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS FOR INDIVIDUAL ENTREPRENEURS WITHOUT A CURRENT ACCOUNT
The requirement to have a current account is justified primarily by the rules for storing and withdrawing funds from the payment system. Some payment aggregators transfer payments accepted in your favor to bank accounts, and sometimes even require you to open an account with their settlement bank. There is the option of opening special accounts by the forces of a payment partner in a partner bank and providing the store with the possibility of withdrawal in a convenient way. Such a scheme requires the conclusion of a tripartite BPA (bank payment agent) agreement between the store, the payment provider and its settlement bank.
In addition, opening an account will allow you to connect to e-wallets as an individual entrepreneur or individual. In this case, the funds will remain on the account within the payment system and you will need to withdraw money manually in a convenient way: to a card, to an account, to another Internet wallet.
You can open a current account inexpensively or choose a reliable bank: you can do this using our online cash settlement cost calculator.
ACCEPTANCE OF PAYMENTS ON THE SITE FOR INDIVIDUALS
Novice owners of Internet services, as well as freelancers, are interested in the fastest and simplest start of accepting payments. Fortunately, this is possible without registering a legal entity.
Payment aggregators for individuals
ACCEPTING PAYMENTS ONLINE WITHOUT A WEBSITE
First of all, we will consider the methods of accepting payments online without using the site.
By Email
Email invoicing is a convenient way for services with non-fixed order amounts, for example, payment for building materials. The store fills out the form with its data and indicates the payer's mail. The buyer only needs to follow the link and enter the payment information.
Via SMS
It works similarly to the previous method, but the order code / number comes in the form of an SMS to the number specified by the seller. The buyer only needs to enter the order number in the payment system and make the payment. For repeated payments, it is possible to pay with a reply message. Example: regular payment for housing and communal services in response to a message from the payment system about a new charge and debiting of funds from the card.
Through a unique hyperlink
The method is similar to invoicing by mail. The method of invoice delivery is changing: the buyer receives a direct payment link on the payment system website. Such services are provided primarily by aggregators such as Ya.Kassa.
Additional options
Additionally, we will consider the possibilities of accepting card payments without a website. There are several ways to accept payments from bank cards. They are all called acquiring. Internet acquiring is the process of paying with a card from a website. If you have a need to accept card payments without a website, there are three ways:
- Online lending
- Payment system for the sale of digital goods
- Payment system with floating price support
- Payment system for housing and communal services
- Payment services for crowdfunding
- Connecting ApplePay to the store
- Payment system for a startup
- Choosing an international payment system
- Acceptance of electronic payments for individual entrepreneurs without a current account
- Acceptance of payments on the site for individuals
- Accepting payments online without a website
ONLINE LENDING
Not so long ago, in addition to the traditional issuance of loans in an offline store, it became possible to purchase on credit through online payment. The principle of this service is the same, it is necessary to apply for a loan in the process of paying for the order and, upon its approval, sign an agreement, and only then receive the goods.
From the technical point of view, the service works as follows:
- The buyer forms a shopping cart on the site, chooses a method of payment on credit.
- Then the online store sends a request to the credit system, for example, BuyVkredit. When working through a payment aggregator, you first contact the intermediary, as in the case of working with any other payment system in this way.
- The user goes to the page for registering a loan application and enters an impressive amount of personal data.
- After submitting the form, the credit institution verifies the request online and almost always issues a decision within a couple of minutes.
- Finally, the bank's response is returned to the store, and the buyer agrees to the terms of the loan.
- The client then needs to sign a physical lending agreement with the bank, which takes several days. The goods at this moment have not yet been shipped, but most often they have been booked.
- As soon as the buyer has signed the agreement, the credit company transfers the success of the payment with credit funds to the store, who ships the order. All further relations on the return of borrowed funds occur between the buyer and the bank, already without the participation of the store.
PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR THE SALE OF DIGITAL GOODS
As you know, the field of eCommerce includes a wide range of options for the implementation of various products. Electronic services such as tickets, game currency, coupons and discounts are generally no different from physical purchases; from the store's point of view, they are exactly the same product. However, when buying something online that can be obtained instantly, without waiting for shipment or delivery, it is important to focus on the speed of processing the payment request.
For example, for payment by card in this case, the success of the payment should be considered the success of authorization and not wait for clearing. Note that many payment aggregators do this for all transactions. In addition, you should not use systems with a multi-step payment process, for example, invoicing by email or e-wallets with mandatory authorization before paying the bill.
It is worth noting that for the sale of digital goods, options designed to speed up payment are especially relevant:
- Automatic replenishment at threshold balance for games
- Saved card payment without 3DS
- ApplePay and similar payment systems
PAYMENT SYSTEM WITH FLOATING PRICE SUPPORT
Stores whose services need to be calculated taking into account several parameters or a free price need a payment system where it is possible to specify the payment amount manually.
Such services are offered by all major aggregators and major online wallets such as W1 or PayPal.
However, there is a situation when, due to legal or technical conditions, it is necessary to transfer the entire contents of the basket. In this case, check with the potential payment partner if it is possible to transfer the payment amount separately for each transaction.
In general, when integrating via API, the store needs to specify only the total order amount. Forms for inserting into a site, work in the same way.
PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR HOUSING AND COMMUNAL SERVICES
Recently, housing and communal services services go online and increasingly provide the opportunity to pay for services without going to a bank branch or post office. In this case, the recipient of the housing and communal services or other similar organization is the same online store and can place a payment acceptance form on its website with a convenient tool: a card, an Internet wallet or through a terminal.
However, the more popular is the service of paying for electricity or other utility bills through client banks or payment systems. To make this possible, the provider accepting payment in favor of the recipient's housing and communal services must conclude an agreement for accepting such operations and simply transfer the funds received to the recipient's details.
And yet, you can make the process even more convenient: if the housing and communal services service has its own API, any payment system can not only accept payment, but also show debt, update meter data or set up automatic deposit of funds.
PAYMENT SERVICES FOR CROWDFUNDING
If you are starting the production of a product or service for a wide range of consumers, it is possible to raise funds for a faster start with the help of “whoever can” donations - a crowdfunding method. There are several types of such investment: after the start of sales, you give gifts to investors, for example, your product (in other words, this is a pre-order); sell% of your business for today's investment; or you give a guarantee of return on investment, take the funds, as it were, in debt.
Since this type of investment attraction is rapidly gaining popularity, a lot of special platforms have already been created on the network, where future businessmen briefly present their product, and potential investors “vote with the;”, i.e. donate using platform tools. The world's largest platform is Kickstarter, and it is worth canceling Boomstarter.
In terms of accepting payments, the crowdfunding platform acts as an ordinary online store, and you and your project are its partners. Therefore, the platform includes payment options like any other eCommerce project. However, the owner of a crowdfunding site needs to choose payment partners that support payment for goods with varying payment amounts and bulk payouts. Most likely you will need direct API integration.
If you are not interested in creating your own platform, but only in raising money to start a project, you do not need to connect anything. However, you can use donation collection services, for example donateMe or some solution, to chip in for a gift, erect a monument or do other good deed without starting a business.
In addition, it is possible to place on your website a button for collecting donations, by clicking on which anyone can replenish your account in a convenient way in the system that provided you with the button. Creation of such a form or button in the presence of an electronic wallet or account takes a few minutes, it remains to add it to your site. Modern payment aggregators provide such a service to small businesses, often it is enough to have an individual entrepreneur or even an individual account.
CONNECTING APPLEPAY TO THE STORE
The newest method of accepting payments was launched in many country - ApplePay, in other words, card payments without a card.
Those. the owner of an iPhone with NFC or AppleWatch can “touch” the device to the contactless terminal and the funds will be debited from the card pre-linked to the Wallet application. This means that all modern terminals for merchant acquiring that accept VISA PayVave and MasterCard PayPass, and in other countries CUP, AmEx and cards of some other IPS, can automatically work with ApplePay. Such payments are processed by your acquirer in the same way as any other card transactions - no additional commission or separate anti-fraud rules.
Plus, it is also possible to accept ApplePay online payments: a standardized button will appear on your service, when you click on it, the customer will only need to put their finger on the TouchID scanner! When paying from the site, the operation must be confirmed, for example, from a phone or MacPro of the latest version. Payment will take place instantly, no need to enter a huge amount of data and "shine" the card number.
How ApplePay works.
You can connect your website or application to the Apple system only using the well-documented official API, start here - https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/get-started/. You need to register an account, implement an API, test according to fairly strict standards, and then it is finally possible to open the possibility of instant payment for your customers. Apple support helps at all stages of the process, but in terms of timeline it is worth focusing on a month or more.
PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR A STARTUP
There is a lot of discussion in startup communities about how to quickly test the hypothesis about the willingness of potential customers to pay for a new idea.
If you only want to find out the demand for a product, it is best to publish on Kickstarter or its counterparts. Such a step will help to find funds for production, as well as give an answer about the interest of customers.
In the case when you need to start accepting payments as quickly and simply as possible, look at the popular electronic wallets: Yandex.Money, Qiwi and others. They all offer a special kind of business account. Alas, the commission rate will be high, around 3%.
If it is necessary to set up automatic withdrawal of funds, PayPal and WebMoney are more suitable for you with a lower commission - sometimes below 1%. In addition, these payment instruments allow you to accept payments not only from your country and, in addition, offer to set up the collection of a commission from the buyer. However, they require a fairly long registration and account verification procedure with a status that allows commercial transactions.
The second fastest way is to connect to a payment system aggregator. In the world, not all market giants work with individual entrepreneurs, and only a few are available to individuals. We wrote about them in detail in the relevant topic.
Foreign payment systems almost always require a legal entity in the EU or the country where the payment partner is located. It is worth paying attention to the Stripe solution: a service created by a startup for startups. Unfortunately, they do not work with individuals and do not accept payments within your country.
If your startup is built on the basis of a popular CMS, carefully study its capabilities and plugins. It may well turn out that all the minimum payment options are already built in and all that remains is to register in the payment system.
CHOOSING AN INTERNATIONAL PAYMENT SYSTEM
If you want to accept payments not only from your country, first of all you need to decide on the list of countries - recommendations on payment systems depend on this. For residents of yur country the connection of foreign payment systems is very complicated by bureaucratic red tape. Therefore, we recommend using the services of any major aggregator of payment systems that has already gone this way. Below you will find a list of the main foreign payment instruments.
- China - ChineUnionPay (bank cards) and AliPay (e-wallet);
- USA - PayPal (cards and wallet) + AmericanExpress;
- Brazil - Boleto;
- Europe - PayPal + Visa / Mastercard;
- CIS - local internet wallets + Visa / Mastercard.
When diving into the details, it becomes clear that in different countries the preferences of buyers and the coverage of the MEAs are slightly different.
If you are interested in how to choose between IPS (International Payment System) in terms of acquiring, then for your country there is not much difference - the division among cardholders is almost equal. In addition, there is Maestro, a fork of MasterCard. Alas, with a low cost of service, such cards are far from being accepted everywhere. It only makes sense to connect AmericanExpress, DinnersClub or JCB if you are targeting the American market. The difference between the Ministry of Railways at the level of the seller's choice of instrument is very conditional and consists primarily in antimonopoly regulation and different tariffs, as well as the geography of coverage. The regulation of IPU activities and their rules of operation are almost identical around the world.
When choosing an IPS, keep in mind that not every payment system will accept payments from non-standard cards. For example, the 16 digits we are used to are not the only option. You can find cards with 13, 15, 16, 18 and even 19 digits in the number. It depends on the IPS, the bank that issued the card and the banking product. The 4-4-4-4 mask is also not uniform. There are combinations 4-3-3-3, 4-6-5, 8-10 and some others.
AmEx cards almost always contain 15 digits in the number, DinersClub - 14, VisaVirtual - 15, and special products from any MPS can have 18-19 digits in the number.
Unfortunately, often an acquiring provider either does not accept cards other than Visa + Master, or requires the card number to be strictly 16 digits, which negatively affects the conversion if you are targeting foreign buyers.
ACCEPTANCE OF ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS FOR INDIVIDUAL ENTREPRENEURS WITHOUT A CURRENT ACCOUNT
The requirement to have a current account is justified primarily by the rules for storing and withdrawing funds from the payment system. Some payment aggregators transfer payments accepted in your favor to bank accounts, and sometimes even require you to open an account with their settlement bank. There is the option of opening special accounts by the forces of a payment partner in a partner bank and providing the store with the possibility of withdrawal in a convenient way. Such a scheme requires the conclusion of a tripartite BPA (bank payment agent) agreement between the store, the payment provider and its settlement bank.
In addition, opening an account will allow you to connect to e-wallets as an individual entrepreneur or individual. In this case, the funds will remain on the account within the payment system and you will need to withdraw money manually in a convenient way: to a card, to an account, to another Internet wallet.
You can open a current account inexpensively or choose a reliable bank: you can do this using our online cash settlement cost calculator.
ACCEPTANCE OF PAYMENTS ON THE SITE FOR INDIVIDUALS
Novice owners of Internet services, as well as freelancers, are interested in the fastest and simplest start of accepting payments. Fortunately, this is possible without registering a legal entity.
- The most convenient way is to receive a transfer to a bank card - card2card (с2с). There are several services where you only need to enter the card details of the sender and recipient of funds.
- The next most popular option for accepting payments is electronic wallets, such as Qiwi or Yandex.Money. You need to register an account in the payment system and place the account (wallet) number on your page. However, the parallel use of several such services will require a lot of attention to the withdrawal of funds, as well as the time to complete transactions with your account.
Payment aggregators for individuals
- Some aggregators of payment systems, for example Robokassa, offer their services on the basis of an offer, and not an agreement with a legal entity, usually concluded with a standard connection. An individual must leave a request from the site by registering a special account. To get started, you will need several ordinary documents: a passport, optional SNN. This option will greatly simplify your interaction with payment systems, but it will be less profitable - any intermediary between you and the buyer will charge their own commission, and in this example, the commission may turn out to be higher than for a full-fledged store, about 5-7% versus the usual 3-5. In addition, for individuals, the list of available services can be greatly reduced.
- If you register an individual entrepreneur, a little more opportunities open up. You can connect almost any payment method to the site through an aggregator, but the commissions will almost certainly be higher than for full-fledged LLCs, and the list of options like linking a card is greatly reduced. However, this option is the easiest for a small business.
ACCEPTING PAYMENTS ONLINE WITHOUT A WEBSITE
First of all, we will consider the methods of accepting payments online without using the site.
By Email
Email invoicing is a convenient way for services with non-fixed order amounts, for example, payment for building materials. The store fills out the form with its data and indicates the payer's mail. The buyer only needs to follow the link and enter the payment information.
Via SMS
It works similarly to the previous method, but the order code / number comes in the form of an SMS to the number specified by the seller. The buyer only needs to enter the order number in the payment system and make the payment. For repeated payments, it is possible to pay with a reply message. Example: regular payment for housing and communal services in response to a message from the payment system about a new charge and debiting of funds from the card.
Through a unique hyperlink
The method is similar to invoicing by mail. The method of invoice delivery is changing: the buyer receives a direct payment link on the payment system website. Such services are provided primarily by aggregators such as Ya.Kassa.
Additional options
Additionally, we will consider the possibilities of accepting card payments without a website. There are several ways to accept payments from bank cards. They are all called acquiring. Internet acquiring is the process of paying with a card from a website. If you have a need to accept card payments without a website, there are three ways:
- Merchant acquiring - offline, terminal connection like in your favorite supermarket. To start using it, you need to choose a bank and conclude a service agreement. The bank will provide you with a terminal. Each payment accepted in this way is charged a commission in the range of 0.5-3%. There may be restrictions on the minimum payment amount.
- Mobile acquiring - offline, using a phone or tablet and a special device for reading card data. Some banks and payment aggregators provide a simplified version of the card terminal - mPOS. Offered by services 2can, Yandex.Money and many others. Such a solution is ideal for a quick start of a new service, accepting payments at festivals or in the absence of a permanent point of sale - it is enough to register an individual entrepreneur.
- Transfers between individuals is the easiest option to start accepting one-time payments without having a website or legal entity. Not suitable for commercial purposes. There are several c2c (Card to Card) services, where you only need to enter the card details of the sender and recipient of funds. Such an opportunity is offered, for example, by Tinkoff and Yandex.Money.
