How to choose a Payment Gateway?

Previously, we have compared various payment gateways that available in Malaysia. The next question will be, which one shall we choose? This article, which is the last of the series, will look into the criteria to choose the service provider that suit your needs.

1. Reasonable onboarding and annual fees
   There are no Free lunch in this world. Either you save on the onboarding fee and pay higher transaction fee or pay a reasonable onboarding fee and have relatively lower transaction rate.
   
   Some payment gateways do charge an annual fee, but maybe waive upon achieved certain transaction amount.
   
   
2. Average and Reasonable transaction fees
   Onboarding fee is a fee that charged upon register on a payment gateway, while a transaction fees are a fee that charged on every single successful transaction. Beside transaction fee, charge back fee, refund fee is all need to be considerable.
   
   Normally zero onboarding fee will have higher transaction fee. For new comer, you have evaluate your service subscription wisely and amend your packages from time to time to suite your business strategies.
   
   
3. Credit/Debit cards, FPX online banking and ewallet
   If you choose payment gateway that only support FPX online banking, then you are neglecting the credit/debit card customers. As ewallets are more and more popular, it is highly recommended to choose a payment gateway that support ewallet as well.
   
   The ultimate goal here is to provide as many as possible payment option to your customer to perform hassle free payment experience.
   
   
4. Frequency of settlement and fees
   Settlement is the process which the payment gateway transfer your hard earn money to your account. Some payment gateways may require a settlement (withdrawal fee) charge every time your make a settlement.
   
   Some payment gateways may require you to manually request the settlement, instead of automatically perform such an exercise.
   
   
5. Secured, verified by Industries
   There are some industry standard for online payment gateway, such as: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), Service Organization Control 1 (SOC 1), Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) compliant, PSD2-compliant, etc.
   
   
6. Bank Negara Malaysia approved
   As I had mentioned it before, the online payment gateway business in Malaysia is booming. There are lots of new payment gateways try to capture the growth, but not every payment gateway in Malaysia is registered with Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).
   
   If the payment gateway is registered with BNM, you are rest assure that, they are qualified, verified, trusted to do business with.
   
   
7. Good customer support
   Payment gateways works similarly to a bank, either you or your customers monies are with them. If they cannot attend to your issue within 1 or 2 working days (Preferable 24×7 support), you will be very bad in the view of your customer

Hope this series of articles will help you to choose a payment gateways that suite your need.

Part 1: What’s Payment Gateways and How does it work?
Part 2: Comparison of various Payment Gateways in Malaysia