What is an Internet Merchant Account?

An Internet merchant account is a merchant account specifically approved for processing "card not present" sales [i.e. "MO/TO" (mail order, phone order) / Internet-Based transactions].
Visa and MasterCard have different criteria for evaluating the potential risk involved in credit card transactions where the card is not physically presented to the merchant. This type of business is typically referred to as "card not present" or "MO/TO" (mail order/telephone order) merchant. For this reason, a separate merchant account is required to process credit card transactions over the Internet.

What is an Internet Payment Gateway?

An Internet Payment Gateway is a feature of a virtual terminal. It takes the credit card information from the Virtual Terminal to the credit card processor, and returns the approval information back to the Virtual Terminal.
The Internet Payment Gateway does this in a "real-time" manner, over the Internet, in a totally secure environment.

Why Do Internet Payment Gateway Providers Exist?

They exist because credit card processors will not allow individual merchants to access their systems through the Internet. They do not permit this because of security issues.

Credit card processors only permit companies that have "certified" their software to access their systems. In this way, credit card processors are able to make sure only a few certified [and therefore trusted] companies have access to their systems via the Internet.

What Can You Do with a Payment Gateway?

First, you can use the Virtual Terminal to perform all the same functions of a physical credit card terminal, conveniently accessed over the Internet through a secure web-page interface. You will be able to manually process credit card transactions, issue credits, void transactions, view your online log file… really manage your Internet-Based business… from any computer in the world.