Being able to accept payments is a crucial part of your business. Knowing what payment methods you want to offer and which payment gateway to pick can set you up for success.
Our payments expert Mikael Christian Carlsen sat down with us and answered frequently asked questions about payment gateways and how Frisbii helps you choose the right acquirer, payment methods and setups.
What is a payment gateway and why do I need it to accept payments? #
A payment gateway is essential to accept payments as a web shop or business and to provide secure and effective payment processing.
Benefits of the Frisbii payment gateway are:
- Accept payments from customers
- Secure transactions to build customer trust
- More global reach, by offering different payment options, currencies and checkout languages
- Processing automation
- Reduction of fraud risks (e.g. via a risk filter)
- Integration with different eCommerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Shopware, Magento, etc.
- Compliance with the Payment Card Industries Data Security Council (PCI DSS)
What do I need to consider when choosing a payment gateway? #
One of the first things you need to be aware of when choosing a payment service provider is PCI DSS compliancy.
You can verify this if you ask to see the attestation of certification which marks a valid provider. You can see Frisbii’s payment security certificates and documents here.
Second, I would suggest a reference check. Ask the payment service providers about their customers and contact them to talk about advantages, the partnership and the support they provide.
Third, you should take a look at uptime to make sure that your payment solution is reliable and doesn’t break down.
Last but not least, you need to choose a payment provider that will offer the payment methods that you need for your key markets. Every country has different preferred payment methods, and some can heavily influence whether customers will churn or convert.
What do I need to properly set up a payment gateway? #
To set up a payment gateway so it is ready to accept payments, it depends on the integrations and plugins and that are being offered. Frisbii provides you with a lot of low/no-code plugins for CMS and web shop systems such as
- WordPress
- Magento
- WooCommerce
- Shopware
- Shopify
- Prestashop
You can also build your own integrations but this is usually not needed if you are using a standard CMS or web shop environment.
However, everything starts and ends with a proper acquiring agreement. Acquiring agreements are the basis to accept payments.
Why do I need an acquirer to accept payments? #
The acquirer’s role is to handle the payout for the merchant. If you, for example want to accept payments from Visa and MasterCard, the Frisbii payment gateway will be handling the authorization of these transactions.
Frisbii does this by securely connecting to the card acquirer. The card acquirer then connects to the card issuer (e.g. the customer’s bank) to verify that the card is legitimate. That way, you make sure that the card was not reported lost, stolen or otherwise manipulated.
The acquirer is a financial institution that will sign an agreement with you as the merchant, so you are able to process and accept payments for credit cards, etc.
Once the transaction has been processed, the acquirer will payout the transactional sum (minus a fee that usually depends on the specific acquirer and chosen payment methods).
You can read a lot more about the acquiring process and how it works in our blog.
Do I need more than one acquirer to accept payments? #
You don’t need more than one acquirer, but we usually recommend it for different reasons.
Some merchants have multiple acquirers to make sure that they have a failsafe solution if one acquirer has downtime, so they can quickly switch.
Another reason for multiple acquirers would be licenses to different payment methods and rates. Not every acquirer will offer all payment methods you might need for your local or global market strategy. You might have one acquirer that only supports Visa and MasterCard. Then you have one acquire that supports American Express. You can have another acquirer that supports Diners Club and JCP.
For an optimal combination of rates and methods, you therefore might have different acquirer agreements. And we help you with the setup and ensure that the transactions are getting securely processed.
Does it matter whether my payment gateway is US-based or European? #
It makes a big difference where your payment gateway is operating from and where you’re located. It’s about data protection and GDPR because if you’re a European business, you want to make sure that the service you use is hosted in Europe for compliance reasons.
Services outside of Europe almost always require more complex documentation and responsibilities on your side.
Furthermore, a lot of the US providers focus on the US market, which is really different compared to the European market.
When it comes to security and fraudulent transactions, Europe has always been ahead of the US, for example regarding strong customer authentication such as two-factor-authentication. There are still a lot of the US cards and payment providers that haven’t implemented the secure standards that we use in Europe.
Do I need different payment methods for my shop or business? #
You can of course reach a lot of customers just by accepting Visa and MasterCard and Apple Pay, PayPal and Google Pay. But we heavily recommend different payment methods, both to show your local footprint and to build trust with customers.
Depending on your markets, local payment methods can be much more popular than global standards and increase both trust and checkout conversions.
For example, if you’re a German company and you’re selling to the Dutch market, it can make you a lot more trustworthy (and even appear as a local seller) if you offer iDEAL as a payment option because it’s very popular there.
Additionally, a lot of the local payment methods have benefits and depending on your prices and number of purchases, it helps to see what works best.
Sol og Strand, one of our Danish customers, who is active in the German market, decided to choose SEPA instead of PayPal because their purchase sums are quite high and PayPal takes fees based on the percentage of the sum (which is very attractive for merchants with many purchases at low prices). SEPA, on the other hand, takes a fixed fee, which saved a lot of money for our customer.
Read about the most popular payment methods in Europe, Germany or the Nordics or download our European Payment Guide for a more comprehensive overview of current payment trends and local preferences across Europe.
Is it difficult to set up different payment methods for payments? #
When you use the Frisbii payment gateway, it’s easy to set up different payment methods, especially since we offer you support in case you need it for acquirer agreements or in case you need advice which methods fit your business best.
As an example, enabling Apple Pay would just be a matter of you entering your merchant name and clicking “enable”.
Setting up PayPal, you would need some credentials from your PayPal account and once you have enabled it, it’s up and running.
Sign up for a free Frisbii test account to see how easy it is to set up the Frisbii payment gateway.
If you have questions, the best thing to do is to reach out to one of our experts in sales to make sure that you find the right solution. Depending on your country or business, there could be special limitations in regard to which products are you allowed to sell and we’re always happy to help you with the right setup.
