Selecting The Right Payment Gateway For Your Business

Whenever I get an enquiry regarding an ecommerce portal, I have to explain what a payment gateway is and most of the time I land up choosing one on behalf of my client.

As a developer it doesn’t make much difference to me what payment gateway my client selects, all I am concerned about is the format in which I need to send the request to the gateway and the format in which I get back the response/status message. For a business owner selecting the right gateway makes a lot of difference.

The aim of this post is to empower people who are planning to setup a payment gateway by providing them a comparative study of popular payment gateway options available in India.

I will not get into details about how a payment gateway works and what you should look for before selecting the correct gateway for your business. Rather I would suggest you to read the Your Story Report on Setting up e-commerce in India.

This post is purely a comparative study of gateways. Hopefully you will be able to select what is good for your business, based on this.

A broad categorization and comparison of the setup fees, transaction and other charges of different payment gateways options available in India:

CCAvenue

Terms & Conditions:

* Taxes as applicable will be levied on set up fees, ASMC and Transaction Discount Rate (TDR) charged by CCAvenue.

** Annual Software Maintenance Charge (ASMC) is charged on a per month basis payable in advance every year in April. Merchants signing on after April need not pay the full ASMC fee. The ASMC fee will be levied on pro-rata basis.

*** TDR = Transaction Discount Rate.

EBS

Terms & Conditions:

*** TDR = Transaction Discount Rate

Service Tax as applicable (Currently 10.3%)

For Starters Package conditions apply

Transecute

Terms & Conditions:

• Per Transaction Fees: FLAT 5% per Transaction
• Supported Cards: Visa / Master
• Application Processing Time: 2 Weeks
• Service Taxes (Currently 10.3%) extra on all pricing.
• Doesn’t support Net Banking

Direcpay

Terms & Conditions:

Service Taxes (Currently 10.3%) extra on all pricing.

BillJunction

Terms and Conditions:

• System Integration Fee : 100% along with the Merchant application form & KYC
• Transaction charges will be debited from the Transaction Amount on upfront basis.
• Security Deposit: As approved by the bank
• Any new bank that will be integrated with BillJunction will be added to the existing list.
• Service Taxes (Currently 10.3%) extra on all pricing.

HDFC Bank

Terms and Conditions:

• Fixed deposit could be applicable in case the company does not meet the requirement
• Service Taxes (Currently 10.3%) extra on all pricing.

Information / Documents required to obtain a merchant account (can differ depending on gateway company/bank)

Sole Proprietor / Individual

• Web site URL
• Pan Card/Passport/ Form 60 (If Submitted in last 60 days)
• Photo id – Passport/ Election Card/ Driving license
• Sole Proprietor Letter
• Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration or Shop & Establishments Certificate or Sales Tax / Service Tax
• Address Verification (Original Copy of Bank Statement/ Electricity Bill/ Landline phone Bill)
• Bank Verification (On Letter head of Bank or Company verified by Bank with Contact details of bank branch)
• Lease agreement or ownership deed for business premise / Ration Cards
• List of Products & Services on Company Letterhead
• Landline Phone Bill (Original Copy of Landline phone Bill)
• Last 2 years income Tax Return
• Last 6 months Bank Statement.
• One Photograph.( of the Merchant )

Partnership

• Web site URL
• Pan Card/Passport/ Form 60 (If Submitted in last 60 days)
• Partnership Deed
• Partnership Letter
• Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration or Shop & Establishments Certificate or Sales Tax / Service Tax
• Bank Verification (On Letter head of Bank or Company verified by Bank with contact details of bank)
• Photo id (Passport/ Election Card/ Driving License)
• Address Verification (Original Copy of Bank Statement/ Electricity Bill/ Landline phone Bill)
• Lease agreement or ownership deed for business premise / Ration Cards
• List of Products & Services on Company Letterhead
• Landline Phone Bill (Original Copy of Landline phone Bill)
• Last 2 years income Tax Return
• Last 6 months Bank Statement.
• One Photograph.( of the Merchant )

Private Ltd /Public Ltd Co

• Web site URL
• Pan Card/Passport/ Form 60 (If Submitted in last 60 days)
• Bank Verification (On Letter head of Bank or Company verified by Bank with Contact details of bank branch)
• Certification of Incorporation, MoA, AoA
• Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration or Shop & Establishments Certificate or Sales Tax / Service Tax
• List of Directors and Signatures
• Board Resolution signed by minimum two Directors
• List of Products & Services on Company Letterhead
• Landline Phone Bill (Original Copy of Landline phone Bill)
• Last 2 years income Tax Return
• Last 6 months Bank Statement.
• One Photograph.( of the Merchant )

NGO

• Web site URL
• Pan Card/Passport/ Form 60 (If Submitted in last 60 days)
• Bank Verification (On Letter head of Bank or Company verified by Bank with contact details of bank)
• Trust Deed
• Trust Resolution
• Certificate issued under registration with the Charity Commissioners office
• Landline Phone Bill (Original Copy of Landline phone Bill)
• Last 2 years income Tax Return
• Last 6 months Bank Statement.
• One Photograph.( of the Merchant )

Note: All the above documents should be duly stamped & signed

PS: I have heard stories of people negotiating some good deals with payment gateway companies, so do try your luck.

Author: Bhanu Pratap Singh Slathia