Ask about approval rate by market
Request authorisation rates for your top countries and card types. This is the number that moves revenue.
Find Payment Providers for Your Ecommerce Business
For standard retail ecommerce the deciding factors are authorisation rate, the local payment methods your markets expect, and settlement terms, usually in that order.
Payment challenges in Ecommerce
- A low authorisation rate costs far more than a small difference in processing fees, but is rarely shown in a sales quote.
- Cross-border selling without local methods and local currency pricing suppresses conversion in exactly the markets you are expanding into.
- Fraud tooling that is too aggressive silently declines good customers while protecting a small chargeback figure.
- Platform and checkout constraints limit which providers you can realistically integrate with.
What to consider when choosing a PSP or acquirer
Match payment methods to markets
iDEAL, Bancontact, Blik, Swish, Klarna and wallets are expected in specific countries. Missing them looks like a conversion problem, not a payments problem.
Read the settlement terms
Payout frequency, settlement currency, FX margin and any holdback determine your working capital as much as the discount rate.
Confirm the integration path
Hosted checkout, drop-in components or full API each carry different PCI scope and engineering effort. Choose before you sign.
What providers assess in your application
- Markets
- Where your customers are and which local methods they expect.
- Currencies
- Pricing, processing and settlement currencies, plus FX handling.
- Volume and ticket
- Monthly volume and average order value, which drive pricing tiers.
- Approval rate
- Authorisation performance per market and card type.
- Fraud and disputes
- Chargeback ratio, refund rate and screening tooling.
- Integration
- Platform, checkout type and PCI scope you can support.
Provider suitability differs from business to business: two companies in the same industry can receive opposite answers because of licence, market mix, ticket size or dispute history. We do not state that a provider accepts an industry unless that provider has confirmed it, and no one can guarantee approval.
Other industries
iGaming
iGaming acceptance is decided almost entirely by licensing and player geography. Providers that support a Malta or Curaçao licensed operator are rarely the same ones that support a UK or Ontario facing brand.
Forex & CFD
Trading platforms are underwritten on regulatory status and client geography. A regulated brokerage in a recognised jurisdiction has a materially different provider pool than an offshore entity taking retail clients worldwide.
Crypto
Crypto acceptance depends on what the customer receives. On-ramps selling digital assets, custodial exchanges and crypto-adjacent SaaS are underwritten as three different risk profiles.
Find payment providers for your Ecommerce business
Add your business essentials once. Your profile is compared against provider criteria, and nothing is sent until you submit your onboarding pack.
Find providers for my businessNothing is shared with a provider until you submit your onboarding pack. Approval is always the provider's decision.