Accept credit cards on your website

Introducing a new generation low cost method to safely and easily accept online credit card payments from your website or shopping cart without any on-going payment gateway transaction fees or charges.

Australia's most affordable internet credit card payment gateway, e-Path, delivers a uniquely easy and secure system engineered from the ground up to comply with, and in some areas exceed, the security standards and requirements of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).

e-Path also complies with CDU (Critical Data Unplugged), a new initiative born from Police and law enforcement advice the world over on how to achieve the ultimate security for critically sensitive data in respect to the increasing risk and vulnerability of the internet. The initiative advances the ultimate security ideal for protecting all forms of critical data in the internet connected world.

With e-Path there are...

A new and less costly way to accept online credit card payments

e-Path is a manual credit card payment gateway that provides the complete secure PCI compliant front-end environment (unique and exclusive to each gateway client) that enables your customers to safely make a credit card payment charge authorisation to you from the internet. e-Path is the secure 'gateway', in the true meaning of the word, between your customer and you.

Being a manual payment gateway means that when someone makes a payment, credit card details are entered by the business owner into their merchant account facility to process the charge on the card, just like when receiving credit card payments from over the phone, by fax machine, via postal mail order or if someone pays by credit card in person.

e-Path is a low cost super secure method to accept credit cards online where you will uniquely have full control over what is accepted and charged into your own private merchant account. No more risking things with blind transactions being performed straight away online without you knowing about it.

So, if you are looking for a method to accept credit cards online via a CDU and PCI DSS compliant service and like the idea of saving a considerable amount of money then you are reading the right website!

A new era in e-Commerce security .... finally!

Although our low fixed yearly price and the absence of all ongoing gateway fees and charges is powering our appeal, it is in fact in the area of security where you as the business owner will benefit the most.

e-Path removes much of the core vulnerability and risks that have plagued the online e-commerce industry and burdened online businesses with excessive costs ever since e-commerce began. This bold initiative to re-engineer the system from scratch has resulted in not only a less costly alternative method to accept credit card payments online but also one that delivers greatly improved levels of security and protection for all parties involved in the process.

With e-Path everyone benefits, you as the online business owner, your online cardholder customers, your merchant account facility provider and even the card vendors themselves. This is what e-Path is all about.

In a nutshell, here is exactly what using e-Path and manual offline processing of credit card payments received online from the internet can mean for ...

The Business Owner

The Cardholder

Banks (merchant accts)

Credit Card Vendors

	This is the ideal service for any business owner who does not want the risks associated with a system automatically and blindly accepting online orders from anonymous individuals where the charge is performed 'live' on the open internet without them knowing about it - as what happens with typical 'real time' credit card payment processing gateways. With e-Path the online business owner finally is in control over what orders are accepted and what credit cards are charged into their own private merchant account. A much less expensive system to begin with. No gateway transaction fees and e-Path is one of the all time most affordable credit card payment gateways. Easy to connect to. No special programs or server side configurations needed. No costly SSL or dedicated IP address needed for your website. Your gateway will be fully protected by THAWTE SSL provided by e-Path. But e-Path still recommends you obtain an SSL for your site to ensure the normal ordering processes (before and after e-Path) are also secure. No PCI compliance certification needed for your website because your website doesn't touch credit card data. Your secure e-Path gateway is PCI DSS compliant which means you will be accepting credit cards online in accordance with PCI requirements. Your merchant account is completely removed from the vulnerability of sitting open to everyone on the open internet. Gone are the days when anyone anywhere can transact a stolen credit card 'live' into your merchant account without you knowing then you have to wear the cost of the loss down the track. That insane risk ends with e-Path. If you have an existing EFTPOS terminal approved to allow card not present transactions to be entered (MOTO enabled), then you may not need another merchant account at all. e-Path delivers the critical security and control that is completely missing from when you have a credit card payment processing gateway performing 'live' transactions in real time on the open internet - which is the number 1 way online credit card fraud is perpetrated in the world today. With e-Path criminals will NOT be able to instantly transact fraudulent payments live and instantly into your merchant account on the net without you knowing. Despite the best efforts from within the industry the actual root cause of around 90% (quite possible more) of all credit card theft can be traced back to credit card details being compromised (hacked into, copied, stolen, etc.) when stored within internet accessible storage devices, databases, systems and networks. Even with this undeniable risk the practice of storing critically sensitive credit card and identity data has become common place today, real time payment processing gateways and online shopping carts are examples. So serious is this risk to the security of sensitive credit card and personal identity information that many hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each and every year in the relentless pursuit to protect this highly confidential data from hackers, cyber criminals and internet crooks. The PCI DSS itself was born from a critical need to help counter this very vulnerability (amongst others). Ever evolving techniques and methods invented by unscrupulously individuals and criminal syndicates means the battle to defend against these threats is an ongoing one, hour after hour, day after day. It is a worrying fact that current defences are not always capable of protecting your credit card details .... More than 100 million credit cards may have been compromised in data breach Visa confirms another payment processor breach Credit card breach exposes 40 million accounts 40M credit cards hacked 40 million credit cards exposed However, with e-Path this utmost serious vulnerability, which is the core root cause of the majority of credit card and identity theft in the world today, has been terminated. It no longer exists. e-Path has been engineered to eliminate the need for credit card details, transaction information and highly sensitive identity details to be permanently stored by the payment gateway once and for all. Once the official bank approved merchant account owner is in receipt of their customers credit card charge authorisation, as far as e-Path and the internet is concerned it is as if that online payment never occurred in the first place. Nothing is permanently stored by e-Path on the internet. No names, no card numbers, no transaction history, no expiry dates. Nothing. Therefore, e-Path terminates the core reason why credit card details and other forms of highly sensitive data potentially become available to 'hackers', 'fraudsters' and 'cyber criminals' on the internet in the very first instance .... ... they can't thieve something that doesn't exist! This extreme and ultimate form of security is known as CDU (Critical Data Unplugged). The CDU initiative has its origins with Police services around the globe and directly stems from advice to the general public and business communities on how to safeguard critical sensitive data from threat within the internet connected world. When a bank provides a business owner with a manual merchant account facility to enable that business owner to charge credit card payments received online through e-Path, the banks exposure to direct risk can be greatly reduced than when compared to if it were supplying an internet based merchant account facility connected up to a third party 'real time' payment processing type gateway. While card not present transactions remain the highest risk transaction type of all, the fact is a manual merchant account will never allow anonymous online individuals to directly and automatically transact a stolen credit card live into it, the ability of which is the number one reason why fraud is so easily perpetrated anonymously online today. With the current third party 'real time' processing gateway/internet based merchant account system anyone anywhere can anonymously enter any credit card they like online for it to be communicated live directly with the merchant account of a business owner without the business owner even knowing. It can be well argued that the third party 'real time' gateway processing system's actual design has inadvertently created the perfect made-to-measure tool for 'fraudsters' and 'cyber criminals' to facilitate their illegal activities on the internet in the first place. To counter this, anti-fraud screening services such as 3-D Secure™, Verified By Visa™, Master Card Secure Code™ etc., can be deployed to defend against this open vulnerability. Each are highly potent and powerful automated fraud screening systems that are continually being improved upon. But circumstances need to be right for them to be effective. There is a crippling multi billion dollar world fraud cost (and growing) each year that is hard evidence the automated fraud screening systems are not providing unequivocal and guaranteed 100% protection for the online business owner against falling victim to fraudsters instantly transacting stolen credit cards into a live 'real time' gateway and thus directly into the merchant account of the online business owner. However, when e-Path is the gateway, for the first time banks can now provide a manual merchant account service to transact credit cards received online where only the legitimate bank approved merchant account owner is the only one performing the charge into the merchant account. The merchant account facility is not being left open and accessible to the entire population on the internet and will not allow anonymous individuals to transact any credit card they like into it live on the net straight away without you knowing anything about it - that appalling vulnerability, which is the actual way near almost all online credit card fraud is perpetrated in the world today, is completely eliminated when a manual merchant account is used. Fraudsters and cyber criminals suddenly no longer have the means to anonymously transact stolen credit cards 'live' on the net and get the live transaction response they look for. This wide open door is shut permanently closed when e-Path is the gateway and a manual merchant account is the merchant account facility. Therefore, overall exposure to direct risk for both the business owner and the merchant account provider (usually a bank) is greatly reduced. The end result of this is not only substantial potential cost savings for both the online business owner and the bank itself but also they both have effectively eliminated the very vehicle that enables instant online credit card fraud to be perpetrated in the first place. The bank will also be aware that with a manual merchant account the business owner now has the opportunity to check highly pertinent details about the buyer and order prior to deciding to charge the card. This means the business owner has the chance to identify and terminate any fraudulent payment attempts prior to them doing any harm - again, something that is not possible when accepting credit cards online 'live' on the net via a third party 'real time' processing gateway system connected to an internet only based merchant account facility. The fact that banks can now supply merchant account facilities that will only allow approved merchant account owner access to charge credit cards as opposed to allowing full and open anonymous access from anyone anywhere on the entire internet represents a benchmark achievement in terminating the number one main method used by fraudsters and cyber criminals to actually perpetrate fraud online in the fist instance. We of course can not speak on behalf of card vendor companies, but the fact they can now supply their credit card product to consumers to engage in online e-commerce knowing their product will no longer be permanently stored by the payment gateway or in internet connected databases, shopping carts, storage device or networks, we assume, must be considered as an extremely tangible positive. Of all the resent security breaches involving credit card payment processors, if we take into consideration just the one where 40 million credit card were compromised, then the cost to actual card vendors just to physically replace those credit cards would be around 400 million dollars. It is reported that it costs card vendors roughly around $10.00 to physically replace a stolen credit card with a new one. Think about that for a moment ... that equates to a 400 million dollar cost just only on replacing the stolen credit cards alone, not even taking into account the cost of the losses to businesses all over the world that only this one breach resulted in. Yet, had e-Path been the credit card payment gateway not a single credit card would have been permanently stored anywhere online in the first place, therefore, not a single credit card could have possibly been stolen. You can't thieve something that doesn't exist. We do not want to infer or imply card vendors have a particular attitude or view towards the new e-Path service one way of the other, however, we can safely assume there would have been some serious 'back patting' going on had they been saved from having to spend 400 million dollars, not to mention the incalculable cost that also could have been saved that was incurred by every business around the world that supplied products or services purchased with those stolen credit cards.

Use your Smartphone, iPad, tablet PC, laptop or humble desktop computer!

What was always the exclusive domain of costly third party 'middles-man' payment processors is no longer. Banks in Australia and all over the world are now getting serious about providing inexpensive and highly secure credit card payment processing solutions directly to merchants via Smartphone apps and online virtual terminal sites for tablet PC's, iPads, laptops and the humble desktop computer systems.

With such a service approved for MOTO (Mail Order Telephone Order)/MST (Merchant Submitted Transactions), you can enter the card details received by phone, fax, physical mail postal order and e-Path directly into your Smartphone, tablet PC, iPad or laptop to immediately charge the card yourself.

To top it off, you simply can not beat dealing directly with your bank for these types of services. You may be pleasantly surprised to find the virtual terminal/virtual POS payment processing service with your bank is considerably cheaper than if you had an external third party payment processing 'middle-man' provider added to the equation.

To learn about these new merchant facilities : Vitrual Terminal Merchant Facilities

Use your existing EFTPOS terminal

For those with an existing EFTPOS terminal already approved to allow card not present transaction processing (MOTO/MST enabled), then to start accepting credit card payments securely from your website or shopping cart you will only need an e-Path payment gateway service, nothing else.

Utilising an existing EFTPOS terminal to charge received payments negates the need for another costly internet based merchant account facility altogether but you will need to ensure your terminal is approved by your bank for MOTO/MST processing.

A new merchant account

For those businesses without a method to process a charge on a credit card you will need to obtain a merchant account service from a bank.

The newer breed of merchant account facilities, usually referred to as 'Virtual Terminal' or 'Virtual POS' facilities, will give you a secure bank hosted page/service to go to on your Smartphone, iPad, Tablet PC, Notepad or desktop computer that enables you to process a charge on a credit card yourself, no costly middle-man!!

Newer technology is enabling banks to provide this type of functionality on Smartphones via bank created and approved Smatphone apps. This is new technology so please check with your bank about the availability of these types of apps for your Smartphone.

All of these are excellent solutions because you can then receive credit card payments via numerous card not present ways, such as if someone was to pay you over the phone, by fax machine, send you a completed mail order or via e-Path and process yourself.

The tangible advantage of these types of merchant account facilities is they are relatively inexpensive and absolutely guarantee you remain totally in control of what credit cards are charged into your own merchant account facility. No more risking it with blind e-commerce transactions processed 'live' and instantly on the open internet by anonymous individuals and into your account without you knowing!

To learn more about merchant account requirements, see: Merchant Accounts Requirements