Choosing a payment gateway for your business

I liked this article from Start Up Smart today.

When starting your next online business you will undoubtedly be faced with the choice of integrating a payment gateway. Whether you make this choice yourself or leave it up to your web developer, there are now more payment gateways available than ever before.

If cash flow is important to your business survival then investigate how long the gateway is going to hold your money before paying it out to you post sale. Note: this can be anywhere from two days (Braintree, eWay) to seven days (Stripe, Pin Payments).

Make sure you own your customer data. Providers such as PayPal will not let you take your data with you when you choose to leave. It's worth investigating this early in the piece before asking a couple of thousand customers to again provide you with their details.

Here is a quick look at some of your likely options.