What is Merchant Services - Payment Processing

The term merchant services can be confusing to many people, because there are a lot of different definitions people use, and they don't all agree on every detail.

One of the reasons that merchant services are so confusing to business owners and others is because this term is used to refer to a variety of services and processes that are used by businesses to accept and process payments.

At one time, the term "merchant services" was only used to refer to the services required to accept credit card payments, but as payment technology has evolved, so has the definition. Nowadays, it is generally used to refer to the tools, companies, and processes involved with payment processing in businesses.

So - the term "Merchant Services" can be thought of as a generic synonym for Credit Card Processing Services. Merchant services could include other forms of payment processing like check or ACH processing as well, but generally people will recognize merchant services as payment processing.

At Champion Payments, our core product is Credit Card Processing or Electronic Payment Processing.

Simply put, we give business owners the ability to accept their customers preferred form of payment. When somebody walks in the door and they want your product or service, obviously you want to be able to accept their money in whatever format they wish to use, with the least amount of friction at the point of sale.

Needless to say, Merchant Services/Credit Card Processing is the MAIN form of payment for doing business online.

The way we see it - our job is to help grease the skids - so to speak - and reduce the friction at the point of sale. We do that by providing any number of different specific services, but the main “hub on the spoke” that connects everything is the actual Payment Processing. That is where we take the money from the one person who is the consumer of the product and give it to the merchant by depositing it into their bank account.

In essence, if you're a small business looking to accept credit card payments, you'll need to find a Merchant Services Provider - a payment processing company - to work with to provide you with the tools you need on the front end (credit card terminals, POS machines etc...) as well as to facilitate all of the behind-the-scenes processes it takes to get the money from your clients bank account into yours, in a safe legal, trackable and timely manner.

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