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.
Get strong customer authentication right
In the EEA, card payments must pass strong customer authentication under PSD2, enforced for e-commerce since the end of 2020; the UK followed on 14 March 2022. Exemptions keep friction down: low-value payments up to €30, within cumulative limits, low-risk transactions under transaction risk analysis, and merchant-initiated payments, which are out of scope. A provider that applies exemptions well lifts approval rates without adding fraud.
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.
Check which routes may fit your business
Provider fit in Ecommerce depends on more than the industry itself: licence, markets, volume and dispute history all change the answer. Answer four questions to start checking your own situation.
Four questions about your business
Industry, company country, customer markets and estimated monthly volume, that is all we need to begin.
Common questions about Ecommerce payments
Do I need a high-risk payment provider for an online store?
Most online stores do not. Standard retail is accepted by mainstream providers. You only move into high-risk territory with restricted products, subscription or trial billing, very long delivery times, or a chargeback history above the card scheme limits.
What chargeback level is too high?
Visa flags a merchant once fraud and disputes reach 1.5% of settled transactions with at least 1,500 cases in a month in most regions, and Mastercard from 1.5% with at least 100 chargebacks. Many providers act earlier, so keep your own rate well below those lines.
What is card testing and why does it matter?
Card testing is when fraudsters run large numbers of small authorisations to check stolen card numbers. Visa's acquirer monitoring program flags a merchant when at least 20% of its authorisations and at least 300,000 transactions in a month are identified as card testing, so bot protection and velocity limits on your checkout protect your account as well as your margins.
How does Ecompayer help online stores?
You add your store, markets, volumes and payment needs once in our online application. We match you with a payment provider that fits your markets and checkout, and your account is prepared so you can start selling.
Other industries
iGaming
iGaming acceptance is decided almost entirely by licensing and player geography. A provider that boards a Curaçao-licensed casino is rarely the same one that boards a UKGC-licensed brand, so the first step is matching your licence and markets to an acquirer's gambling programme.
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.
Check my payment optionsNothing is shared with a provider until you submit your onboarding pack. Approval is always the provider's decision.