PayPal, both the United Kingdom and United States sites, launched a new service recently that allows merchants to take payments online without using the normal hosted payment gateway that PayPal has used in the past. This new service comes with three main features: Express Checkout, Direct Payment API and Virtual Terminal. Together, they let merchants offer shoppers more choice in how they pay for items - with their credit or debit cards through PayPal, directly on their websites, by phone, fax, or mail.
The Direct Payment API works to allow merchants the ability to allow payments online as if they would with any other merchant account. The customer will enter credit card information directly as they would on any other site and PayPal will process the payment as normal. PayPal Express Checkout, from the demos online, appears to be a direct answer to newcomer Google. Express Checkout offers the same one-time only interface that will remove the need to re-enter billing and delivery information for each purchase. The difference is that Google will also store your credit information, PayPal will not.
Virtual Terminal added three new forms of payments. Phone, mail, and fax are offered to allow the expansion for payment processing. The Virtual Terminal emulates the ‘swipe’ terminals allowing information to be entered online as if the customer was present in the store or office.
A buyer can use any major credit or debit card as well as bank funding or PayPal balance. Besides Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Switch, Solo, and Maestro, PayPal enables a merchant to accept payments from a wide range of locally preferred funding sources such as Discover or ACH in the US and Canada, Giropay or ELV in Germany.
Prices for this non-hosted service start at $20.00 a month. There is a 2.2-2.9% transaction fee for each purchase, and a flat fee of $0.30 per payment. Businesses can signup online at PayPal’s website.
USA
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