What Does a Merchant Account Do?

Small business merchant accounts are customizable to fit each individual merchant's needs (we at UniBul certainly do that). All of them provide Visa and MasterCard acceptance for both credit and debit cards. Be sure to check what your debit card processing rates are. They should be substantially lower than those of credit cards. Discover card and American Express accounts are optional and your processor should set them up, per your request, at no charge. Both Discover and AM EX set their own rates and credit card processing companies have no control over them.

Every credit card payment processing account will also enable you to accept reward cards, fleet cards, private label cards, corporate cards, etc. In addition, you will have the ability to issue gift cards under your own brand name. This is a third-party service and every major credit card processing provider supports it.

Electronic check acceptance is another service that you can get with a business merchant account. It allows customers to enter their checking account information in your payment acceptance form and the funds are then directly debited and transferred to your checking account.

There are other payment processing services that are available to merchants, such as EBT acceptance, private label card issuance, stored value programs, etc.