An MSP, or merchant services provider, is an organization or a company that provides transaction processing solutions to merchants. It can help you set up your business to accept credit, debit, check, or gift cards as a form of payment from your customers. It is a special account linked to a credit card processor that works with your customer’s bank to help route payments into your business’ bank account. A lot of small businesses have started tapping MSPs for their credit card transactions because it is cheaper with fewer charges levied on the merchant.

There are a couple of requirements before you can begin payment processing online. You must secure a server with certification so any information your customers will send you cannot be decoded. Order forms should be in the secure server for customers to access and fill up. The gateway allows for authorization, processing and management of the merchant services. The shopping cart is an application which allows you to have an e-commerce store where purchases are automatically calculated. Lastly, you need a merchant service account, which provides access to a processor able to authorize, capture and settle card transactions.