http://www.provab.com - A merchant account is a specific bank account intended to hold funds, received from credit and debit card sales through online payment interfaces on B2C travel software and Travel POS. If you’ve ever used your card and actually wondered where the funds just disappeared to, they went into a merchant account. When a customer pays for booking travel products using credit or debit card, money from his account is immediately transferred to the travel agent’s merchant account. From there, money will be transferred out to a normal business bank account through a standard protocol.
Taking payment individually from those who book flights, hotel rooms, etc, through your travel agency might have become a little difficult because of increased transactions on a day to day basis. If you want to accept credit card payments online, you need either a merchant account provider that issues merchant accounts to businesses. Or, you can use the services of an aggregator, a company that processes transactions through their own merchant account on behalf of other companies. Often, smaller travel agents don’t get the merchant accounts directly through the banks so easily. Now the question arises that how to get approved for a merchant account? Below are two steps to be followed to get your merchant account approved easily?
Gather Your Financial Statements: Financial statements are the single best tool you can bring to the table in order to leverage the best terms of approval possible.
Consider Your Processing History: Having a strong processing history is another extremely important tool to leverage your application. The more money you trade, and the fewer charge-backs, the stronger case you build. Processing statements should always show the following broken down by month:
Total transaction volume
Number of transactions
Total chargeback volume
Number of charge-backs
Total refund volume
Number of refunds
Online travel software definitely needs merchant account linked with payment gateways to survive. That’s why third party payment gateways like PayPal, 2CO etc are used worldwide. When processing a credit card transaction, information needs to be sent somewhere to see if the cardholder has sufficient funds to pay for the sale. In a traditional brick and mortar transaction it’s actually the POS (point of sale) machine which takes the cardholder data, formats it and sends it to Visa or MasterCard to see if the customer has sufficient funds. In an ecommerce transaction the service takes place online via a payment gateway. The payment gateway receives transaction requests and then connects to Visa or MasterCard, and ultimately down the line to the customer's card issuing bank to see if they have sufficient funds. If they have enough cash, the transaction is authorized and the funds are transferred from the cardholder into the merchant account. Often, a merchant account and payment gateway are set up in one process through the same company. While paying through credit / debit card, your customers should feel safe. Visa and MasterCard have a very clear policy that is enforced when a cardholder pays for a good or a service: “The cardholder is entitled to receive the promised good or service. If such good or service is not delivered then the cardholder is entitled to getting their money back.” It is one of the basic consumer protection principles that apply to credit card transactions.
With the merchant account, you can entertain all the widely recognized cards and never send back a customer telling her credit card is not accepted by you. Since it works in real- time, merchant accounts reduce deposit times for your company and avoid the prospect of inadequate funds landing you and your customer in uneasy situations. Most of the travel portal development companies suggest their clients to use the direct merchant account for the same reason. Your new customers should be made your regular customers. Merchant account will help you to make them come back to you to buy travel products in future. You can also increase your sales asking your provider to customize a loyalty program of B2C travel system for you. Your customers can get some discounts at the places they spend their vacations or when they next book travel products from you. A valuable gift from merchant account is online payments. With this visitors to your site can click on the pay button in your website after choosing the flights and hotels, and pay by just filling in their payment data on the secure online form. Immediate validation of payments will occur. You’ll get the money within 24 hours. As a business person this is a great boon to you.
