No matter how great your product is, it’s impossible to succeed if your business can’t efficiently collect payments. Payments are what keep businesses running, so it is important to be thorough when choosing a payment gateway. 

Ideally, you should go into the process of choosing a payment gateway with a list of requirements in mind; non-negotiables if you will. In the words of Germany Kent, “If you don’t know what it is you’re looking for, you’re never going to find it.”

Lucky for you, we have put together a list of requirements for you to tick off before making this huge business decision.

Low-cost

As obvious as this may seem, you will be surprised that many businesses do not properly consider cost before they choose a payment gateway. This is because these transaction fees look small and negligible at first glance. 

Many business owners don’t realize that these fees add up, and the amount of money you can save on payment collection over time might be the difference between a business’s growth or failure.

It is important to pick a payment gateway that saves you money compared to other market options, especially for a business with a lot of growth potential. Take Fincra, for example. You can save up to 0.30% on transaction fees using Fincra when compared to other payment solution providers. This means more money stays in your pocket, allowing you to reinvest it back into your business.  

Ease of Integration

This is another essential requirement that must be met before deciding on the best payment gateway for your business. 

Let’s assume your company has a comprehensive team of developers; you still would not want them to waste time and energy on integration. It is important to pick a payment gateway that can be integrated into your systems seamlessly and in record time so that you can move on to other pressing business matters.

With Fincra, integration is simple on any website and platform. We offer our systems via the Fincra dashboard or API. We designed our APIs in the common API REST structure and provide SDKs, which make the integration process much easier. 

Fincra’s infrastructure handles millions of API requests monthly, so you can rest assured that you are partnering with a technically sound payment processor. 

In a recent LinkedIn audio event, Fincra’s Developer Relations Engineer Christopher Chukwuemeka said, “With our SDKs, even a non-developer can integrate our payment gateway.” This statement points to the type of integration process that any business needs from its payment gateway.

Payment options

Payment gateways enable your customers to make payments to your business, which is why this particular requirement is so crucial. It’s all good and fine for a payment gateway to have great technology, but if it does not have adequate payment options to accommodate your customers’ different payment preferences, then that payment gateway does not efficiently meet your payment needs.

When choosing a payment gateway, you must pick one that provides enough payment options to enable your different customers to make payments to your business. We don’t like to brag, but when using Fincra as your payment gateway, your customers can make payments to your business using their cards, bank transfers, PayAttitude, mobile money and M-Pesa.

The payment flexibility that Fincra offers will keep your customers returning to your platform because paying customers value convenience.

Security

As a business, it is your duty to protect yourself and your customers from fraud. Customers share sensitive financial information when making payments, so it is paramount that you choose a payment gateway that does not compromise security.

You need to choose a payment gateway that follows modern security measures, one that will make your customers feel safe about making payments to your business. Naturally, we suggest a payment gateway like Fincra. 

At Fincra, we take security very seriously to ensure the safety of all transactions. Fincra is PCI DSS compliant, meaning it has the highest security audit standard as a payment processor.

By choosing Fincra, you can get additional security support, such as using two-factor authentication as an extra layer of security.

If people trust your payment gateway, they will be more inclined to make payments to your business. Fincra’s payment security will help you retain customers and, as an added effect, increase revenue.

Customer support

Regardless of how thorough you are when choosing a payment gateway for your business, your customers may still experience the occasional issue. While thoroughness in this process will reduce the number of incidents, they will not be eradicated completely.

When your customers experience these ‘once in a blue moon’ hiccups, it is vital that the payment gateway you have picked has amazing customer support. This will allow them to resolve their issues quickly, resulting in a positive customer experience. 

How customers feel when interacting with your business is usually what turns one-time customers into recurring customers, so this requirement is as necessary as all the others on this list.

When looking for a payment gateway with amazing customer support, you don’t need to look any further than Fincra. Fincra has specially trained customer service staff with exceptional people skills, enabling them to deal with customers efficiently and solve any problem that is put before them.

Choosing a payment gateway for your business is a decision that should not be taken lightly; it could be make or break. If you use the requirements in this article as a checklist when making the decision, then you will likely make the right choice.

All these requirements point to one payment gateway: Fincra. 

Click here to get started with the best payment gateway for your business.