In this age of Information Technology, online presence of a company plays a pivot role in spreading its business worldwide. Everyday more and more companies are establishing a web presence with an aim to spread their customer base from one city to the whole world.

It is no more the age of sending checks or money orders, neither the customers have time to do so. Every company wanting to start it's business online and sell products worldwide needs to have a way to instantly accept payments online. If your company is looking to benefit from E-Commerce, you can look into the following methods of accepting payments online:

Merchant account:
The quickest and most convenient way for a user to pay for a product is to pay via credit card. To accept a credit card, your company should have a merchant account. Currently, Citibank is the only bank providing true online merchant account in Pakistan. If you are a new or a small company, forget about a merchant account due to it's high setup cost and difficult approval policy.

Furthermore, to accept credit card payments you will have to get SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate for your website. You will also require a full system to process credit cards and securely store credit card information. All this will cost you quite a good amount. So, if you are a small company, it would be better to avoid starting directly with a merchant account.

Third party merchant account:
For individuals and small companies the best and cheapest way to accept Credit Card payments through their website is to have a third party merchant account (also known as a sub merchant account). Some of the famous ones are 2checkout and worldpay etc. In a third party merchant account, you don't need SSL certificate or scripts to process credit cards as all is done on the merchant account provider's website.

Another main advantage of using a third party merchant account like 2checkout is that users trust them and don't hesitate to give their credit card information on their website.

The main downside of third party merchant account is that unlike merchant account, where payments directly come to your bank account, you have to wait for the third party merchant account to send the payment. Although most of the third party merchant account providers dispatch payments at-least twice a month, the delay can become a serious issue for you.

Apart from accepting credit cards, you may like to look into the option of online payment processors as there still are lot of people who find it convenient and safe to use them. You should also consider these online payment processors to avoid losing potential customers.
You open your account at these online payment processors' websites and you get an account numberwhich you provide to your customers to send payment to. You can then withdraw payments to your bank account whenever you want.

Let me share some information about famous online payment processors:

Paypal
Paypal is the largest, safest and most convenient online payment processor with over 30 million users. Unfortunately, it is only available to 38 countries and Pakistan is not included. The best way to obtain a Paypal account for Pakistanis s to ask a business partner, friend or relative living in any of those 38 countries to open a Paypal account and accept payments on behalf of your company.

If your company is targeting the audience of Europe, North America and Australia, you will be surprised to find out how much your sale will increase by accepting payments through Paypal.

E-gold
E-gold is in the market since 1996 and is doing pretty good job. In E-gold's system, money is not stored as cash, rather it is stored in terms of gold which of-course keeps varying as the price of gold varies. This has it's own advantages and disadvantages.

A major drawback of E-gold is that you can not withdraw your money directly from E-gold rather you have to use their dealers or exchangers. However, if you have a large amount of gold in your account, you can request gold bars to be sent to you by E-gold.

One negative feature on customers' side is that it can not be charged back which can be done in credit cards and Paypal. If your account gets hacked, forget your money.

Moneybookers
Don't worry! This is not a betting agency. It is an online payment processor from Europe launched around 2 years ago. Moneybookers is the only payment procssor launched recently which has been able to make a solid reputation for itself. Moneybookers account is available to people from all countries and it's use is convenient for both buyers and sellers.

The only drawback of moneybookers is fewer users, but, as time passes I am pretty sure that it's users will increase due to the positive business attitude of this company.

Other online payment processors
I would strongly suggest to stay away from other online payment processors. Many new payment processors are now popping up, mostly started by non serious people.

Only use other online payment processors if you are sure of them being a proper company but again it might not be worth it as most likely users will not prefer to buy using these payment processors.

Future of online payment processors
With recent news of google planning to launch its online payment procssor by the end of this year, fierce competition is expected between Paypal and Google. Google due to it's economic strength will come in direct competition with Paypal which has 30 million users. Due to this competition, Paypal will have to increase it's user base by allowing users from more countries to signup. This can ultimately bring good news for Pakistanis too as it can then allow Pakistanis to signup for a Paypal account too.

This Google vs Paypal scenario will create difficulties for E-gold and Moneybookers. Most likely, E-gold will be able to survive because of it's uniqueness but Moneybooker swill have to do more effort to keep it's users loyal. This will create an overall environment of competition and hence quality of service will increase as well as processing charges will be decreased.

But don't be happy as of yet; who knows Google might buy Paypal and end up all the high expectations, highly unlikely but still possible as Google never fails to surprise anyone by its innovative ideas

Start benefiting from the outgrowth of E-Commece through these online payment options. Afterall, your company's next outlet should be on internet.

The writer is a young Pakistani Internet Entrepreneur. He is involved in many E-Commerce based websites and can be reached at azhar@azharali.com .