• Real Time - A real time credit card payment gateway communicates directly with your merchant account to process the payment in real time from your website. Its fast, convenient and doesn't require any involvement by you. However, You have little to no control - anyone anywhere can perform a transaction on your site. a real time payment gateway together with the specific type of merchant account needed at your bank to operate with it are both very costly. Further, real time credit card payment gateways will usually charge you a fee every time you receive a credit card payment, this is on top of your banks merchant account fees. They are ideal for businesses that transact many hundreds of sales per month but are not usually viable for small to medium businesses because of cost considerations.
• Manual Credit Card Payment Gateway - The manual alternative is quickly becoming the system of choice for small to medium sized businesses on a limited budget. Accepting online credit card payments are performed in exactly the same way as a real time gateway except you will enter the transaction yourself into a much more affordable manual merchant account facility at a bank. Although its their low cost that is making these manual systems popular its their security that is providing the greatest benefit to merchants and credit card paying customers. They are an extremely safe and secure way to acceopt credit cards on the internet. Two of the worlds leading manual payment gateways are right here in Australia, E-PATH and PAYECOM.

What is a merchant account?
A merchant account is a type of business account provided by a bank that settles the credit card charge. There are different types of merchant accounts available. Ones that work with "real time" payment gateways are by far the most expensive, whereas manual (MOTO) merchant account facilities are ideal for manual payment gateways such as e-Path and Payecom are the least expensive.

How do I get a secure server (SSL) certificate?
Netports Australia provides the use of the shared THAWTE SSL. So, you are already completely covered for all e-commerce activity from your website. However, should you want to install your own SSL cert, you will need to purchase one from a provider of your choice, such as Verisign or Thawte. If you decide to purchase your own certificate, you will need to submit a "CSR" to the SSL provider from your cPanel. Netports Australia will need to assign your account its own IP address. Please contact our support department to set this up.