Obtain an Internet Merchant Account and a Payment Processing Facility

An Internet Merchant Account is necessary to be able to take payments online and it runs alongside your business bank account. An account is available from several sources, but we impartially recommend Streamline. Streamline are owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland, but you do not need to be a RBS or Natwest account holder to use the Streamline Services.

While Streamline provide the account and the transfer of funds, you will also need to arrange for a payment gateway. This provides a secure link between your website and the bank to ensure your customers' card details are kept secure. For this we prefer to work with ProTX. The main reasons are that their fees are very good and include up to 1,000 transactions per month. Also, we know their processes, so integration with new websites is efficient. ProTX provide a lot of information, without jargon, on their website - www.protx.com