Flagship Merchant Services

Merchant services are accepting payment from a customer on behalf of a business. With the growth of business and digitization, it has become almost mandatory for companies to avail the services of payment processing companies. These payment processing companies handle customer credit and debit card information and their security systems are supposedly the best in the world. Recently a payment processing company was hit with a security breach that led to a panic, but was quickly restored. An enquiry regarding this breach is being carried out to understand the extent of exposure of customer information.
Recent surveys have ranked Flagship Merchant Services as the best merchant services company for online payment processing facilities. It is followed by Merchant Warehouse, Chase Paymentech, Merchant One, goE Merchant Merchant Accounts, Merchant Accounts Express, The Transaction Group, Gotmerchant, First Data and Electronic Transfer Inc.

The review and results were based on the following factors:

Customer Ratings
Application
Monthly fees
Transaction processing Fees
Features
Security
Credit Cards acceptance means they are indeed credit card merchant services.
Customer Support

Specific details

1. Customer Ratings: All the companies were rated on the below parameters:

Average approval rating
Cost at start-up
Cost per month (as per reviewer)
Customer service
Time taken to setup a new account
Point of sale or Swipe-based
Internet-based features

2. Application Process: All the payment processors except Electronic Transfer Inc, Merchant Warehouse, Merchant Accounts Express, Gotmerchant and The Transaction Group have a provision for digital application. Approval ratings for the same, average around 95% to 99% for Flagship and it usually takes 0-3 days to setup an account.

3. Monthly Fees:
There are 3 types of monthly fees:
Gateway fee, It is between $9.00 – $19.95
Monthly minimum fee is around $15.00 – $25.00.
Statement fees range from $5.00 – $10.00

4. Transaction processing fee: Merchant One and The Transaction Group charge the lowest Internet based fee i.e. 20 cents
Merchant Accounts Express charges lowest retail fee i.e.19 cents followed Flagship Merchant Services

What are other benefits of the best merchant services company?

5. Features: Some of the features offered by most of the payment processing companies are listed below

Payment gateway
Virtual terminal
Merchant account
e-check,
Point of sale credit card swipe-in facility
Recurring billing
Shopping cart

Account clearance takes 1 to 3 days.

6. Security: Strong fraud protection features are put in place by payment processors, especially in an age of increased threat from hackers.
Some of the key steps include:

Address line verification
SSL verification
Real time processing
CVV2

7. Credit Card Acceptance: Most of the payment processing companies accept all the leading credit cards e.g. American Express, Visa, Discover and MasterCard.

8. Customer Support: It is very important to choose the right payment processing company by the kind of post-sales service they provide. A truly global merchant service like Flagship Services score very high on parameters like 24/7 support, toll-free phone numbers, e-mail, fax, and live chat (online).

Flagship Merchant Services having topped the latest survey, have been found to have an approval rating of 99%, a paperless application process, almost no annual contract fee, number of gateway options, and minimal transaction fees.