A merchant account is not only a requirement for the online eCommerce businesses but also for offline merchants accepting credit or debit cards as a mode of payment at their retail POS terminals. A merchant account is a license that is obtained from a bank which allows you to accept cards. Since all credit or debit cards are issued by banks alone, they are interconnected using their own internal network. They can process payment requests from your terminal and then either authorize or reject them. If you have an offline merchant account with a bank and are looking to start an online venture where you can accept card payments, you can approach your bank to extend the merchant account license to cover the online payments. They could either issue a separate merchant account or even open the online requests so that you can send credit card details from your website to the bank for authorization.
Tags: merchant account