Of course first you need to know that I help to run some of the gateways on behalf of some of the banks. We provide access for merchants to gateways and wallet systems, others use our products in value-added reseller models who then directly interface with merchants.

So the three categories are:

1. Gateways – simple API’s into the banking system like CardPay and BuyLine.

2. Wallets – Paygo, Paypal and others where the money is held by another organisation on your behalf in a virtual wallet.

3. Resellers – like Paystation, flow2cash and SecurePayTech that focus on delivering products to merchants with value added services, like integration and troubleshooting support, advanced merchant reporting, PCI compliance etc.

DPS does most of these things and is the dominant player in the market. But I suspect is this is mostly due to visibility not real service or price. (bias warning: I don’t work for DPS).

Each bank has its own preferred gateway so I suggest that you look at your merchant’s bank and ask them which they prefer. Your merchant has some vested interest in this too as they will need to know the terms, conditions, risks and costs of doing business through whichever gateway is chosen and may wish to shop around.

Lastly:

- Do not handle the customers card details EVER,
- Know all parties involved in the transaction process,
- Minimise your risk and your customer’s,
- Keep it simple, and,
- Make sure you meet your customer’s needs.

Good luck to you and your client.

I was wondering though, your list of gateways can be split into at least three categories can’t it?

Firstly; you’ve got the PayPals and Paymates, which are basically hosted solutions which you hand the duty of payment over to.

Secondly; you’ve got the Cardpay and Buylines which are basically the bank’s own Payment gateway to their own merchant accounts.

And thirdly; you’ve got the merchant aggregators like DPS which handle the payments and can put the money in the merchant account you have with BNZ etc.

Am I right in this synopsis?

The thing I’m having trouble finding out is; if we go with a aggregator like DPS, do they add fees of their own to the transactions (on top of the banks fees)? Or is the pricing comparable?

We want to use DPS because of ease of integration, but if it’s much more expensive then it’s gonna be a hard sell to the client.

Having integrated an online shop with a bank provided product before, I can suggest that some solutions are easier than others to get going, but I do agree: Internet security should be the paramount consideration toward a successful e-commerce site.

Good luck with your online shops people, and don’t forget the lowly PHP developers out there who are ready and waiting to help you integrate your product… ( shameless plug )