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.
You can see all of Frisbii’s payment methods here – we support both one-time and recurring payment methods as well as global and local options.
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
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.
How does the Frisbii payment gateway help with acquirer agreements? #
Both our service team and our platform are actively supporting merchants with acquiring agreements. If you sign up for a service with us and you want to accept payments, we will help you with the application.
You fill out the required data in our product and we will reach out to the acquirers and help with the setup of your acquiring agreements.
This service is important to us because we know that it can be confusing and challenging for merchants and businesses. Not everyone has experience with acquiring agreements when they start their business. For us, it is fairly easy to utilize our experience in the payment and subscription industry and help you set up these acquiring agreements.
Additionally – and this is quite unique in the payment gateway market – the Frisbii payment gateway is acquirer agnostic, so we have a lot of different acquirers that you can choose from.
The important thing for us is to make sure that you have the best rates and that the specific acquirer(s) fit your needs. This could be markets, or it could be industries that help determine which acquirer(s) are a perfect fit for your individual business.
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.
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 more about the customer case.
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.
How many payment methods does the Frisbii payment gateway support? #
Frisbii supports over 50 one-time and recurring payment methods for you to accept payments, so you can use our payment gateway for an online shop with many one-time payments but also for subscriptions or for recurring customers, if you have club memberships, etc.
We offer the major and global payment methods such as Visa and Mastercard but also provide you with many local payment options that are specifically relevant if you are doing business in European countries. You can find the full overview of all payment methods accepted by Frisbii here.
A few examples:
- Austria: EPS
- Belgium: Bancontact, Payconiq
- Denmark: Anyday, ViaBill, Vipps MobilePay, Santander
- Finland: Santander
- Germany: SEPA, PayPal
- Italy: Bancomat Pay, MyBank, Satispay
- Lithuania: Paysera
- Netherlands: iDEAL
- Norway: Vipps MobilePay, Santander
- Poland: blik, Przelewy24
- Portugal: MB Way, Multibanco
- Sweden: Vipps MobilePay, Santander, Swish, Trustly
- Switzerland: Twint
Which eCommerce shops does the Frisbii payment gateway support? #
We offer a lot of plugins that connect your web shop to Frisbii without any coding required, so you can accept payments without requiring a developer.
We support:
- Dandomain
- Drupal
- Dynamic Web
- ideal shop
- Magento
- Opencart
- PrestaShop
- Shopify
- Shopware
- uCommerce
- VirtueMart
- WooCommerce
Can you integrate your accounting solution with Frisbii? #
We offer different ways to connect your accounting solution. We have plugins from accounting partners and from third-party partners:
- Kontolink
- billy (by IEX)
- Dinero (by IEX)
- e-conomic (by IEX)
- Lexware Office
- meneto
- VATsense (by IEX)
- Visam eAccounting (by IEX)
- Xero
And we provide the option to build your own accounting integrations to connect to different systems with a very simple modular if/then-logic to set up your own rules and triggers.
For example, if a transaction is set as ‘sent’, ‘settled’, or ‘refunded’, you want it to do something in another system. So, this could be your accounting system where you want to create a line in your accounting system. It’s fairly simple for developers and power users.
You can see an overview of all plugins here.
Do I need a developer to set up the Frisbii payment gateway? #
You don’t necessarily need a developer to set up the Frisbii payment gateway. Since we offer a lot of low/no-code plugins, you can easily set it up without programming know-how.
But if you want to integrate it to your own backend, we use Open API. So, what you see and can do in the Frisbii dashboard could potentially also be seen and done via your own dashboards in other systems with the right setup.
For more complex requirements, you would need a developer to help you out. But our API-approach as well as our thorough documentation makes it easy for any developer to customize the solution.
For any standard requirements, the out-of-box-solution will be set up in no time. Our record is 15 minutes to set everything up if you already have acquirer agreements in place.
How long does it usually take for payments to go through when using Frisbii? #
It depends on the individual payment method.
If you accept payments via credit cards and debit cards, you will get an instant reply for the authorization of the payment, then you have the payout of the transaction. This is governed by the acquiring agreement you have.
Some payment methods are paid out daily. However, for many Visa and Mastercard transactions, there is a two- or three-day delay until the funds are on your account.
If you look at bank transfers, most of them will give you an answer in real-time. For most payments, you see payouts within the range of a few hours or a few business days
When it comes to digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Vipps MobilePay, etc. – these are based on Visa and Mastercard transactions or national payment methods. So, the payout frequencies are the same as with credit cards.
But for most payment options, you will get a real-time answer that tells you if the transaction was approved or declined, even if the payout itself will come a little later, you will have that information.
If you have a financing service you might not get a real-time answer, since the finance institution needs to do an approval check. But they are fairly quick to answer on transactions, and you will get a reply if something is pending.
Are there any country limitations for the Frisbii payment gateway? #
The payment gateway itself does not really have country limitations. However, not all acquirers and payment methods support businesses of all countries.
Sometimes, acquirers don’t work with specific industries or with companies from specific countries or outside of specific regions.
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.
So just reach out, we’re happy to help.
