eCommerce websites have the big responsibility to ensure that all payments that are processed due to purchases of their products and services are secure and easy. Multiple payment options are ideal for a large international organization, catering to customers across the globe.

As an e-commerce website, there are many factors contributing to the safe payments and business owners have to be on their toes to ensure that they are offering the best to their customers in terms of security and payment charges. Unfortunately, no matter how secure you think your website is, expert hackers can still find ways to overcome the security features to access sensitive customer data. Even the biggest companies, often have their security compromised, not due to a security lag, but because hackers are always working to find ways to break the security codes for online payment gateway providers for their benefit.

Full-service payment gateways
There are various companies that offer full-service payment gateways; these are typically gateways that allow the merchant to use the gateway without setting up a merchant account. This is the easiest option in case of low volume transactions for a business. If in case the merchant does wish to have a dedicated merchant account then the payment gateway will offer to do it for you.

From the start to finish the entire setup of payment services generally takes around three to four weeks. On the other hand, in the case of some other companies, payment gateways can be set up without a dedicated merchant account; this is better for small and medium-sized businesses, they will have limited transactional value for each month. Setting up a full-service payment gateway using the top online payment gateway providers, will require less time when compared to the other ones, requiring a merchant account to get started. Although the company that you are working with will offer you a solution and offer to open the merchants' account, it is still a long drawn out affair that takes a few weeks.

Price
One of the most important considerations to take into account is the price of the setup, plus the recurring charges for every transaction. Unfortunately, most organizations offering online payment gateway solutions for small businesses without the merchants' account, charge higher for processing payments per transaction.

Funds availability
To make certain that you received your funds on time or at least as soon as possible is another big contributing factor in this segment of the business. Every company has different holding and processing time, and working with the best will ensure that you receive your funds as soon as possible. Some gateways, unfortunately, can clear partial payments and holds on to a small percentage for up to thirty days. Others will release the full payment by the next day, so funds availability is one major contributing factor for the best gateways for your business.

International payment methods and transactions, the security features of the gateway and customer supports are few of the other big considerations that must be taken into account before committing to one of the leading online payment gateway providers, for the business.