Benefits of White Label Merchant Services: Building Your Own Payment Processing ISO Program

You may realize that becoming a registered ISO or starting a credit card processing company yourself can be expensive, but luckily this is not your only option when you're looking to break into this field. One of the best ways to get into the digital payments business is to start your career out as a independent sales agent. The upfront costs are minimal, and you can learn the business inside and out with a lot of room for growth. It's one of those coveted sales positions where you not only get commission at the time of the sale, but you usually receive residuals for the life of the account.

The key to success as a merchant services agent is choosing the right partner company to work with—this is an ISO whose products and services you will be offering to merchants. Since finding the best ISO agent program is so imperative to your future, take your time to consider who will be the best fit for you.

In order to help you get started on your quest, here are some of the best ISO agent programs out there that you can look into:

Looking for a company that has a lot of experience and support? This can be especially important when you're first starting out. You don't want to just be left in the dust whenever you have questions or if something goes wrong. We are very committed to offering the best service possible to not only our end-users, but more importantly to our sales agents. We provide you with the latest technology, varied offers to give to your merchants, and top-notch service. We also offer extremely fast payments, and in fact will pay you every day instead of making you wait for weeks.

If you are a sales-oriented individual with vast experience in the world of credit card processing or you are a driven and motivated professional looking for a new challenge, Shaw Merchant Group will be a great fit for you. With the most competitive commission structure in the industry, SMG will see to it that you are rewarded for your efforts.

As one of the best ISO agent programs, SMG has a history of a favorable commission structure, superior products, and sales support for our ISO partners. With so much commission at stake, you will truly feel like a partner in the SMG business plan.

With Shaw Merchant Group's white label program, you'll be able to market under your own brand, without paying costly annual fees! Your brand will be seen on the partner portal, marketing communications, merchant statements, and much more.


Want to go with a leader in the industry? North American Bancard is a great ISO with a lot of options for the ambitious sales agent. For one, they have a proven track record of service and have been around since 1992. They offer some of the easiest-to-navigate merchant applications around, a great support team, and in-depth training so that you can sell more effectively and grow in your payment processing career. They were among the firsts in the business to offer lifetime residuals from every deal that their sales agents close. If you want a reliable company that will let you build the passive income side of your business, you should seriously consider NAB.

Naturally, you are probably going to want to research more than just a few companies, but these are truly some of the best and brightest in the industry, and it's not a bad list to start with. Before anything else, it's important to perform a self-assessment and decide what your needs and wants are when it comes to an ISO partnership. Really, this means asking yourself: What kind of ISO is going to best serve my clients? If you still have no idea, that's perfectly fine. You don't have to limit yourself to a single ISO, and in fact it's probably a good idea when you are starting out to try several different processors.


Maybe you're looking for a very reliable company that has a history of great service and close relationships with their merchants and sales agents. In that case, you won't go wrong with PayProTec. They offer great customer support, as well as extensive online resources that you can use to build your business. When you sign up as a merchant services agent, you get a free website, a back-end portal where you can check your stats online, and the ability to look up trouble tickets and see any problems that your merchants are having. Like NAB and a few others mentioned here, they also have a free terminal program.

Interestingly enough, they're not just paying lip service when they say that they care about their sales agents—they offer health care benefits and will reimburse half of your costs! This definitely helps to relieve one of the bigger headaches of being self-employed.


Part of working in any field is having a niche, but oftentimes you can find yourself partnered with a company that won't approve of the merchants that you want to work with. Nothing is more disappointing than having great personal connections and prospects, but needing to turn them down because they run a “high risk” business, such as a liquor store, an e-commerce business, or any sort of retail store that would be subject to a lot of charge-backs.

With EMS's program, however, you won't have to worry about any of that. They will deal with just about any sort of merchant, including high-risk applicants. In fact, they approve about 95% of the merchants who seek accounts with them. This is good news for your clients and for you—especially since high risk merchant accounts can be particularly lucrative.

Electronic Merchant Systems is a good choice if your merchant is an e-commerce business. They offer multiple gateways to make sure your client's shopping cart software will work perfectly with them. Give them a try, especially if your merchants tend to get rejected by other ISO's.


Become a payment service provider today and take your business to the next level. If you are a sales-oriented individual with vast experience in the world of payment processing or you are a driven and motivated professional looking for a new challenge, the SMG ISO agent program might be a great fit for you. With the highest paying commission structure in the industry, superior products, and sales support, our program will see to it that you are rewarded for your efforts.

For anyone with a sales background or a passion for the payments industry, SMG is the ideal partnership. There are dozens of reasons to become a sales partner with Shaw Merchant Group, but don’t just take our word for it. Here are some of the top reasons that we were given when we asked our ISO agent participants why they chose us and why they continue to work with our highly lucrative program.

Sales Partner Portal

With our industry leading partner portal, you’ll have access to online enrollment, training sessions, marketing materials, and you’ll always be ahead of the game with the latest news and promotions.

Alerts

Stay up-to-date on merchant issues and their resolutions via automated emails and text messages that include a detailed ticket number describing what the merchant’s concern was and how it was resolved.

Registered DBA (White Label)

With our program, you’ll be able to market under your own brand, without paying costly fees! Your brand will be seen on the partner portal, marketing communications, merchant statements, and more.

Free Equipment for Your Merchants

Selling businesses on a new processing plan is much easier when you are able to effortlessly jump over the hurdle of the cost of the equipment. With this program, you can offer your clients free equipment that they will need for their processing provider change. This lowers the barrier to switching and creates a higher conversion rate for you.

Lifetime Passive Income

You will recieve 50–70% of residual income based on the pay structure you select. You will share income on every available revenue stream. With SMG, you get a True Interchange Revenue Split. Unlike other ISO agent programs, there is no basis points off the top for BIN sponsorship or for what they call hidden losses. Our sales partners earn more residual income with our 50/50 partner program than you would with our competition who claim to offer a higher percentage because thier interchange cost (buy rate) is higher.

$20K Performance Bonus

We offer a performance-based fast start bonus that is payable for anyone that onboards more than the standard threshold of clients in the first 4 months. This program is designed to reward those experienced sales members that join our team and quickly learn how to sell this product. The bonus can reach up to $20,000, making it one of the most lucrative and competitive in the industry.

Profitability Based Bonuses

We will look at how much profit is generated on the account after they have been processing for one month and you earn 14 times of the total profit. Example: If we retain $100 in residuals in that month, the bonus would be 14 x $100 or $1,400. You would have already been paid $600, so we would pay you an additional $800 on that account. This bonus is capped at a max of $10,000 per merchant per location. With our dual pricing program it is easier than ever to earn huge bonuses with a 14x profitability bonus. This dual pricing model enables you to maximize your bonus at $10,000 on almost every merchant processing over $90k.

Dual Pricing Program

When you are selling merchant services, one of the best assets of any partner program is more rewards and incentive programs that save your client money. The Edge dual pricing program is one of the hottest new commodities in credit card processing, as it is designed to save the client thousands of dollars in credit card processing cost, instead passing on the fee to the consumer in a way that isn’t damaging to their own conversion rate and revenue. We offer this program to our clients and make it easy to understand and present for our sales partners.

Medical Benefits

With some sales jobs, you don’t even have the option for medical coverage. With the SMG ISO agent program, you’ll have the resources that you need to provide healthcare coverage to you and your family at an affordable rate. We take care of our own, and when you are in our program you will have access to these benefits.


Wondering how to become a merchant services agent and just crush it in the sales game? Well, it is both easy and challenging. It’s easy for those who know what they need to do to become a successful sales agent and difficult for those who are clueless.

So to help you have a pretty good idea of things, we have come up with this guide. It will help you up your merchant services game with just a few practical approaches. So with that said, let’s start:

5 Core Elements to Work on to Become a Successful Merchant Services Agent:

1. Decide Your Approach:

One of the most important parts of not just the ISO agent program, but any business, is that you have the groundwork laid out. When you become a merchant services agent, you will have to make a complete business plan and decide your approach before stepping out into the field. There are various aspects that you need to consider, and some of the main ones are:

  • What will be your target market? (Individual street-side stores or the ones in malls)
  • What will be your target industry? (High-risk industries like CBD or low risk like parking garages)
  • How will you make money? (Sell plans only or other things like terminals as well?)
  • How will you approach a customer? (Your pitch – most important)
  • How will you market your business? (Cold calling, internet marketing, word of mouth, anything else?)

Everyone wants to become a credit card processing agent because of the freedom this job grants; no more bosses micromanaging you! However, this also means that you are mostly on your own in the field. You need to come up with a strategy, decide your approach, take action, and keep refining the strategy based on results.

2. Spread the Word:

Sales business benefits a lot from social networking. The more contacts you have, the more clients you can expect from every direction. People in today’s world don’t blindly trust any business, which is why they ask their friends and family for referrals and usually end up trying out the referred business.

According to BigCommerce; 92% of people believe in suggestions coming from friends/family more than advertising. This shows how powerful referrals can be, which is why you need them! You will work on two types of referrals besides the general business contacts.

  • Commission Based: These will be the people you will pay a percentage of your commission for bringing you leads. They can be your relatives, friends, family members or someone you go to the gym with. The gist is, you will tell them to look out for any merchant in need of credit card processing facility, refer them to you, you will educate them, close the deal and share some of your commission with the referrer.
  • Merchant Based: These will be directly the merchants. You can visit different merchants in your vicinity, introduce yourself, ask them if they need any help with their credit card processor, and just help them without charging anything. You are actually selling without selling! When they see you are there for them when they need you, they will put trust in you, and sooner or later, either they will switch to your credit card processor or tell their ‘merchant-friends’ about you. Either way, it’s a win-win for you! Making yourself known in the community and increasing your exposure will reward you with sales and opportunities you wouldn’t have thought about.

3. Choose the Right Credit Card Processor:

Choosing the ISO agent partnership is the most careful thing to do. It can either make your merchant sales career or break it. Most of the ISO agent programs will promise to bring the moon for you if you bring sales, but not everyone will really live up to their promises. So to help you find the right program, we have outlined some tips below:

  • See if they are offering their customers free add-ons like POS terminal, and signage. These things make it easy for you to sell.
  • Do they have fair pricing? The processing fee and their monthly service fee should not be too high that discourage the merchants from taking the plan.
  • Do they offer a cash discount program? Here, the merchants can offset any processing fee directly to their customers and not pay anything.
  • Are they using the latest equipment and software? How smooth is their POS interface?
  • How good is their customer support for both merchants and agents? You want a processor that won’t leave you hanging when you need help.
  • Will they work in high-risk industries like CBD, Pharmacy, and Tobacco, etc.? You might not work in these industries now, but when your business grows, you will have to.

Check your contract with them, check your fee schedule, and see how much you will be paid in commission; it should be fair. Also, they should have various bonuses available for achieving good sales.

• You should not be bound to make X number of sales to continue receiving residual income from your previous client; they should be yours no matter what your sales numbers are.

• You should not be bound to only work with them until the contract ends, working with other processors simultaneously should be an option.

You also want to ensure that the ISO agent program you are working with offers amply training resources so you can better equip yourself with knowledge about the product.

Tip: Try exploring our ISO agent program; we fit this criteria and have been in the game for several years. You might find your a perfect match without having to comb through the market.

4. Be a Sponge and Absorb Knowledge:

Be it merchant services sales or any other business; knowledge is power, which is why you need to be the sponge. Absorb as much knowledge as you can about your business, the market, the customers, and, more importantly, the product.

Start by devouring the educational and training material provided by your ISO agent provider. Side note; Shaw Mrchant Group offers a wealth of resources for gaining knowledge and proper sales training.

Once you are done by company training material, take courses on platforms like Lynda, Udemy and Coursera, etc. Not only you need to learn about your market, product, and target audience, but you also need to know about the tactics of selling effectively.

5. Honesty is the Best Policy:

They say honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom, and I say you need to read this whole book. To become a merchant services agent who gets results and is loved by his customers, you need both honesty and wisdom.

You need to have wisdom allowing you to help your potential clients without asking anything in return as they will bring you good business once they trust you. You need to be an absolute truthful person so that merchants can rely on you for their credit card processing needs.

Once they do, they won’t go anywhere, and you’ll be getting continuous residual income. So being wise and honest will only add wings to your business, keep practicing both.

Practical Tips for Selling the Merchant Accounts:

  • Learn to Identify Prospects: Rule 101 in a sales agent’s notebook; drop the bad prospects, and focus on good ones. Let’s say you visit 10 prospects, 8 of them are not interested in talking to you, and some may even talk harshly, drop them. Focus on the remaining two who discussed their business with you or at least showed some respect.
  • Talk Less Listen More: You need to use your ears more than your tongue. Listen to the pain points of your potential clients, and only talk when you have a solution or a question. Let them feel that they can rant in front of you, and you will listen and solve their issues. Just let them talk themselves into sales!
  • Don’t Be Pushy: Do not make your prospects feel like they are being pushed or pressured into making a purchase from you; you might soon get banned from their store. Instead, just have patience, and keep visiting them from time to time. Don’t let them forget you, and once an opportunity comes up, you will be the first one in their minds.
  • Be Creative: You cannot sell by selling, this is not the 70’s, and everyone knows the old tactics of selling, so you need to be creative. Let me give you an example of creativity; there was this merchant that had a POS which didn’t support the processing program that the agent was selling. The agent gave him a free POS terminal as his company; (SMG allows it), sold the old one on eBay, and gave full money back to the merchant. You can imagine if the merchant converted or not!

Over to You:

To become a credit card processing agent, you will have to do a lot than just wearing a shoulder bag and using gel in your hair. You need to have a plan, a network of referrals, the right type of processor, a wealth of knowledge, and an honest approach. Only with these core elements, you can make it to the top.


Wondering how to become a merchant services agent? Maybe you don’t know how the credit card processing program works and want to understand its basics? Well, whichever reason has brought you here, this comprehensive guide will help you understand how to become a merchant account reseller and how the merchant account reseller program works, along with many more useful things. So with that said, let’s get started:

Process of Becoming a Credit Card Processing Reseller

The process is not really hard; you just need to understand who is who and what is what and you will be quickly able to figure out how to become a merchant account reseller. So basically there are two ways you can become a merchant services agent, and we will discuss both of them below:

  • Being MSP: Short for Member Service Provider, MSP, or also known as ISO (Independent Sales Organization), is usually a company (it can also be an individual) that is directly connected with the bank. However, if you go with this route, you will have to pay a large chunk of money to the bank on a yearly basis to establish a relationship with them and enjoy various perks like low buy rates and continuous support. However, the amount you pay to the bank per year can be up to $10k or more, and since you are just starting out, you won’t have this much money. Plus, some banks don’t even sign up individuals and require them to work with their registered MSP.
  • Working with MSP: This is the second method of becoming an agent where you will be working with an MSP that is directly registered with banks like the NAB ISO agent program. Now obviously, you won’t get the buy rates that the bank is offering, you will get a rate that will have MSP’s commission added to it. But considering that the MSP is paying a hefty sum of money to the bank per year, this is more than a reasonable deal. A good MSP or ISO partner program will provide you with ample learning resources and continuous support so you will be able to learn quicker and ultimately earn quicker.

Now that you know the difference between both, you should not have any problem with joining a merchant services reseller program. However, there are some more things you need to understand before you dip your toe into this field. So for that, we will cover things like how this program works, what your responsibilities will be, and some things to look for in a suitable ISO partner program.

How Does The Reseller Program Work?

The process is pretty simple and straightforward. Assuming you are working with an MSP/ISO, you will get a ‘buy rate’ from the company. You can call it the profit of the MSP program. Now when you deal with a merchant, you will have to add your own profit to that buy rate and offer it to the merchant so that whenever a transaction is made, both you and the MSP will get a piece of it.

For instance, if you join a merchant services program that is offering you a buy rate of 2% + 20 cents, you can resell it to the merchants for 2.3% + 25 cents. These additional %0.3 + 5 cents will go in your pocket. Now, this looks like nothing compared to the work you will put in converting the merchant. However, this amount will be charged for each transaction the merchant makes on credit cards.

This means that if the merchant processes 100 credit card transactions with an average of $10 per transaction, then it becomes $1k. So you get, 0.25% x 1000 = $2.5. Now also add 5 cents for each transaction which will be $0.05 x $1000 = $50. So the total becomes $52.5 in recurring monthly income. Now that’s the income from just one merchant.

If you sign up 10 of them in your first year, your monthly income will be $520 per month in the second year. So you can keep adding merchants to your portfolio and keep increasing your income.

Responsibilities of a Merchant Services Reseller:

Your main responsibility will be to sign up as many merchants as you can because that is the sole factor behind your monthly income. Here are a few more things that’ll be on your plate once you become a credit card processing agent:

  • You will have to first learn everything about the products/services you will be selling to merchants
  • You will have to educate merchants about what you are selling and persuade them to sign up for your program.
  • You will have to help the merchants in completing necessary paperwork and setting up their merchant accounts with the MSP.
  • You will have to work continuously with the merchants you sign and offer them support whenever they encounter a problem.
  • You will also have to actively search for new merchants and pitch them your products/services. Most of them will show reluctance, keep paying them friendly visits, and help them without asking for anything in return, some of them might convert soon.
  • You will have to keep a continuous track of your progress, how many merchants you signed up, how much you are making, what your monthly goals are etc. (Some good ISO programs offer web-based dashboards for performance measurement).

These are a few important things that you will be doing on a daily and weekly basis as a credit card processing reseller program agent.

Things to Look for in a Suitable Reseller Program:

The policies, procedures, and rules of merchant programs vary, which is why you need to be very careful when choosing one. We have already discussed the things you need to look for in a program in this guide - Selecting the Best Merchant Services Agent or ISO Program. However, to provide you with a basic idea, we have covered some basics you should remember below:

  • Their Buy Rate: The MSP/ISO you will be working with should have a lower buy rate as merchants will prefer to pay a low fee, which is why a program with a high buy rate won’t get you high sales. North American Bancard eliminates the concept of buy rate with cash discounting, making it easier to get more merchants. Read about it here (Link to the guide on cash discounting)
  • Monthly Sales Quota: Some merchant processing programs require you to make X number of sales to keep earning the residual coming from your merchants, avoid them at all costs. Your residuals should stay yours no matter how many sales you make.
  • Customer Support: Go with the merchant processing program that offers the best customer support. You don’t want to be stuck in a position where a merchant is having a technical issue, but the processing company is not answering your phone.
  • Freebies: Some of the top merchant services programs offer freebies like a free POS terminal and signage to let customers know the merchant accepts credit cards. These things really help when you pitch your program to the merchants.

There are many more important factors you need to look for when joining a credit card processing reseller program, make sure to read out detailed guide this subject.

FAQ:

Who Can Become a Merchant Services Agent?

To be honest, anyone can become a merchant services agent as long as they are disciplined, self-reliant, and go-getters.

Granted, you will have to study a lot at the start about the programs you will be selling and the techniques to sell effectively, but once the ball starts to roll, you will find it easy to work in the industry.

How Much Can a Merchant Services Reseller Make?

There is a lot of potential for how much you can make. If we look at the example above, then you might make $50 off of a single merchant.

If you manage to sign up 15 merchants per year, then in 5 years, you will be making $3750 in monthly recurring income without doing much. Keep increasing merchants, and your income will increase.

How Do I Become a Merchant Account Reseller?

It’s simple, just select a good merchant account reseller program, talk to them, discuss your concerns, and once you are satisfied, fill their form.

You might be required to provide them with some documentation, just follow what they tell you, and after some verification work, you’ll be registered as their merchant accounts reseller.

Over to You:

See, it’s not really hard to be a merchant account reseller, plus the perks of being your own boss and no income cap really make it an appealing business model. However, just be careful when joining a credit card processing reseller program as you don’t want to be bound by unfair rules and regulations.


If you want to enter into the massive merchant services sales industry, then we would like you to stop right there. Before taking the plunge, there are a few things you should know. You need to have a clear idea of this industry and whether a credit card processing sales job is even your cup of tea or not.

We will help you know some simple yet important facts about selling credit card processing in this guide and will also provide you with useful tips to jumpstart your career as a merchant services agent. So with that said, let’s get started:

Why is it Important to Know?

Before we move towards knowing some important facts about the merchant services ISO agent programs, the question that might come to your mind is, why bother knowing these things? Well, to be honest, there are a lot of factors involved when it comes to getting merchant services sales jobs, it’s not as easy as approaching the merchant, pitching the service and closing the deal.

Things can be both easy and difficult, which is why you need to set your expectations straight. So instead of jumping into a river without gauging its depth, it is better that you know how deep it runs. Therefore, we will tell you both the good and the bad of the merchant services industry.

These advantages and drawbacks will help you understand what to expect from it and whether it is the right field of work for you or not. So follow along and learn some of the most important things about selling credit card processing.

Benefits of Selling Merchant Services:

There are plenty of benefits in the merchant services careers, which is why many opt for this route. If you are persistent and work very hard, you will enjoy a high income and many benefits that come with it. Here are a few advantages of working in the credit card processing industry:

Excellent Earning Potential:

The basic need for everyone is the money, the sole motivating factor that makes you want to work for hours without looking at the clock. Well, the good thing is that this job is based on commissions. So you will be paid for the amount of work you put in and not like corporate jobs where you give 12 hours daily for a fixed pay.

However, if you ask an accomplished merchant services agent, he will tell you that the money doesn’t come easy and is certainly not handed to you on a silver platter. To make a killing in the industry, you need to work very hard, build a network, and be persistent.

There are also several bonuses offered by credit card processors for achieving X amount of sales that add to your overall earnings. So once your business takes off, you can then enjoy a vacation on the beaches of Bali while sipping your fresh piña colada.

Flexible Schedule:

The best thing about working in the merchant services business is that you are your own boss. There is no one looking at you with a microscope waiting for you to make a mistake. You can work on your own terms and in your timings as long as you are getting sales because sales pay the bills in this game.

You can approach any business you want, wherever you want and whenever you want to make your pitch. There will be no one calling you and asking you why you haven’t reached the office yet; your dining table is your office.

Tons of Surprises:

If you are someone who cannot deal with a monotonous routine and the same kind of office-based work, then this is the job for you. You will start your day not knowing what’s in store for you because you get to meet lots of new people in this line of work.

Different merchants will need different tactics and pitches for the deal to close. So you will have to adapt to the situation, work any problems that may arise, and learn something new every day. If you are someone who loves this kind of work, then you will definitely have higher job satisfaction.

Drawbacks of Selling Merchant Accounts:

Remember, nothing, and I repeat nothing is always rainbows and sunshine. Not even rainbows and sunshine are always there on the sky. So you cannot expect the merchant services sales job to be a walk in the park. There will be some drawbacks, just like there are with all types of jobs. If you are someone who is ready to face challenges and come up with new ways to achieve their goals, then you might not be affected by these downsides very much. That being said, let’s see what they are:

Repeated Rejections:

Yes, this will happen. Every sales job comes with complimentary rejections, which an agent has to accept. Selling merchant services is no different. You will likely face two types of merchants when it comes to rejections. The first ones are those who already have a credit card processing provider, and they are satisfied with it.

The second ones will be those who just don’t want this facility or those who don’t have time to talk to you. You can persuade these people to an extent, and some might convert. I know getting rejected is tough, but you will have to take it like a man and move one to another merchant, there are plenty of them out there.

Soaring Competition:

Yes, there are thousands of merchant services agents out there just like you. But don’t let the high competitive environment bring you down. If you have the key ingredients of becoming a successful credit card processing agent then nothing will stop you from getting ahead of the competition.

Plus, you have to be a bit creative in selecting the location to target, maybe a new mall, or a complex? You will have to figure things out as you go and not leave any stones unturned in getting ahead of the competition.

Things You Can Do To Have a Strong Start as Merchant Services Agent:

Now that you know the good and bad sides of the merchant services industry, it is time we give you a few pointers on kick-starting your career.

  • Establish Goals: Being a sales agent means you need to manage yourself because there is no one at your back, making plans for you. You need to set targets like closing X amount of deals in Y number of days. And then work with all your strength and capabilities towards achieving the targets. Once you do, reward yourself with something you like.
  • Strong Networking: Being a new agent means no one really knows you. So you need to get yourself out there and have more exposure. Visit potential merchants, have a chat with them, help them out with anything related to credit card processing for free, and slowly and gradually build trust. Once they know you are knowledgeable and helpful, they will either get your service or refer their fellow merchants to you.
  • Understand What You Offer: Speaking of knowledge, you should first increase it to be able to help and educate merchants. Credit card processing is a vast sea, and you need to cover its every aspect. Learn about the services, equipment, and value you are offering so you can better communicate with the potential merchants and pitch them more effectively.
  • Follow Up: No matter how the dealing with a potential merchant went, always follow up. After contacting a merchant for the first time, don’t let them forget who you are or what you offer. This doesn’t mean you start visiting their home, but rather, say Hi every now and then. If, after some time, you feel your efforts are going somewhere, keep pursuing otherwise move on to a different merchant.
  • Offer Excellent Support: One of the main things that you will sell is support and not the service itself. When things are a bit technical, like credit card processing, people purchase the person selling them and not just the product/service. This means that they will buy trusting your word, and you will have to be there for them whenever you are required. This will not only retain your current merchants but also build your credibility in the industry.

Parting Words:

Many jump into the credit card processing business hoping to build successful merchant services careers; however, only a handful of them manage to do so. Do you know why? Because the ones that fail expect a lot at the initial level. And the ones that win just keep their heads down until they can live with their heads high. There is a difference in IMPOSSIBLE and IMPOSSIBLE. You just need to be persistent, work hard, and have patience; you will make a successful career a possibility one day.


Merchant services is one of the hottest industries in the country. Merchant services can surely be lucrative, but one of the first things that you will need to learn about merchant services is that there are a variety of services that fall under the umbrella of being in merchant services. One of those is payment processing. If you want to achieve a higher income, more streams of revenue, and a better relationship with your merchant clients, then one of the questions that you may be considering is: how to become a payment processor?

A payment processor is one of the most essential roles in the payments process. However, becoming a payment processor is somewhat difficult if you don’t know the proper steps and the benefits of becoming a payment processor. If you’re ready to become a payment processor, but don’t know where to start, then this guide will give you valuable insight that will show you how to enjoy the benefits of becoming a payment processor while also being aware of the potential drawbacks.

Benefits of Becoming a Payment Processor

One of the reasons that so many merchant services providers flock towards becoming a payment processor is that it does come with a number of benefits that make it absolutely the right choice for some. In order to make the decision for yourself whether you want to become a credit card processor you need to get to know the benefits of being a payment processing company a bit more. Here are some of the most well-known benefits of becoming a payment processor for merchants and businesses.

Revenue Streams

Most people that want to branch out to being a payment processor and create a more robust product offering are doing so because they want to diversify and expand their income streams. When you are a payment processor, you will be making money from payment processing in a variety of ways. This can help to reduce the risk involved in being in business and make it more feasible to have success in merchant services. While there is undoubtedly more responsibility and some more work involved to get things going, you can certainly experience improved and more stable income as a result of becoming a payment service provider.

More Control

One of the best aspects of running your business as a payment processor is that when you are a payment processing company, you have more control over the entire process. This means from the underwriting to the actual payment processing, your business will be involved. While some see more work in this arrangement, others see an increased opportunity to optimize and improve the process in a way that most directly benefits your business model. You’ll be able to evaluate risk and other factors in the way that you see fit and place importance on the factors that you think are important. While this does increase liability and put more of the burden on your business, it also could allow you to explore opportunities that you might not have been able to before and have real influence on the industry.

Streamlined Support

As a merchant services reseller, there are some benefits such as being able to outsource customer support. However, there comes a point where each professional must decide whether this is a benefit or a liability. Outsourced customer support or the act of passing on your customer to another company for tech support can feel bloated and inefficient. When you are a payment service provider, you will have more freedom to handle customer support on your own. This can mean that your customer support is a better experience overall. It will mean faster service times, more direct communication, and increased trust between you and your customer. This all leads to greater customer loyalty and overall a better business outlook.

Steps to Becoming a Payments Processor

Though the concept of becoming a payment processor is somewhat easy to understand, the process does take time and effort if you want to have success. Here are the most important steps that you need to take if you want to start a payment processing company.

Registration/Paperwork

Perhaps the most important step is a good foundation. For a payment processing company, this often means registering with the proper authorities and making sure that you have all necessary paperwork in order. Be sure to do this before anything else, as it could leave you open to liability down the road.

Hire Staff/Facilities

The next thing you will have to do is build the infrastructure of your team and company. For payment processors, this means hiring staff and renting facilities that will house your business and carry out business functions for you.

Build Workflow

Now that you have all the permanent aspects in place for your business, it’s time to build the wireframe of your processes and workflow so that your business and employees understand how the business works.

Market Services

When you have everything set up, you can begin to get clients and market your services to anyone that can benefit from them. You will also build selling and commission programs to attract agents. This creates a funnel of clients and sets up your business for success into the future.

Grow Your Merchant Services ISO with White-Label Payment Solutions

As an independent sales organization (ISO), you can upgrade your business by providing merchant processing services under your own brand. You may dismiss the idea at first, probably thinking that you don’t have the infrastructure or expertise to become a payment processing company. However, with white label payment processing, all you really need is a good ISO partner.

How a White Label ISO Program Works

To offer payment processing services under your own brand, your ISO partner will provide you with an online application page that doesn’t identify their company. This “white label” solution is ready for your brand and includes your logo, colors, and contact information, so your merchants only identify the payment solutions with your company. It eliminates any confusion among your merchant customers about who their service provider and primary contact should be. Your brand is the only thing the merchant will see on your website, merchant portal, and marketing materials. 

Your payments ISO partner becomes a silent partner, providing technology, payments functionality, and services. This puts you in more control, allowing you to deliver seamless, consistent customer experiences in all interactions – and enhance your brand’s reputation. With this white label payment solution, you won’t need to overcome negative perceptions a prospect may have about the company your working with. This is because you are creating a unique customer experience. Better still, you don't have to fall in line with another company's existing customer experience. 

Once you start providing white label payment processing services, you will also find that you build stronger, longer lasting relationships with your merchants. They'll begin to view you as a payments expert and an expert in the other solutions you provide. You may even find you are able to grow your customer base, as merchants in every vertical or niche can benefit from accepting payments, enabling you to market to more types of businesses.

Remember: white label payment processing enables you to earn huge residual income.

Our White Label Program Will Save You Thousands in Fees

Put your brand on merchant statements and applications — build your brand with your sub-agents and merchants. Full white label payment solution with your logo and branding on applications, statements, online enrollment, merchant and partner portals.

We at Shaw Merchant Group have an awesome white label solution. There is no huge package of documents for you to fill out, no approval process by Visa and Mastercard and the sponsor banks, and best of all no annual dues. Here are some details on the “White Label ISO” program:

  • Roughly 4–5 weeks to fully set up once we get the signed license document back.
  • Executed addendum from you saying it’s OK for us to use your brand too.
  • This program can run on our standard schedule A’s with bonus and free equipment and has no other obligations. from you other than the standard agent agreement.
  • When we set up the DBA you will have access to EPX/BMO Harris for submitting merchants under your brand.

What do we brand?

  • Paper Applications
  • Online Applications (Simplified Enrollment)
  • Partner.PaymentsHub for your back office.
  • PaymentsHub for your merchants — It’s generic when your merchant logs in and then show your brand once inside.
  • Merchant Support Email — TMS (ticket management system) which emails you and your merchant each time we speak with your merchant and shows the proper brand in the notice and as the from address on the email.
  • Merchant Support Phone — Our call centers answer with a generic “merchant services” then once they have the MID identified, they represent your brand.
  • Deployment Packages — Generic boxes and welcome docs inside with proper brand.

What we need:

  1. A letter authorizing EPX to register your DBA on your company letterhead.
  2. A high resolution image of your company logo.
  3. A certificate of good standing from the state you are registered in. It may not be called a certificate of 'good standing' in some states.
  4. The ISO Branding request form.


One of the most lucrative fields that you can get into as a salesperson is selling to other businesses and especially selling merchant services. Unlike most end consumers, business owners keenly understand the value of investing wisely in long-term solutions, and not merely throwing away their money on something cheap. If you want to truly contribute value to other business owners, while making a decent paycheck every month yourself, one of the best ways to do that is to offer quality merchant services. You will be invaluable to your clients, and if you serve them well, they will continue to look to you for ways to make their business more efficient.

Why start selling on your own, though? Isn't that a lot more work? What are the benefits if you're already working in a commission-based kind of job? Well, here are a few of the major ones:

More Control

Even if you're working in a field where you get a relative amount of independence, like in sales, you still don't have complete control, and your whole work life revolves around satisfying someone else's numbers. You may have your own personal selling style, but the overall strategy that the company follows—the direction in which “the ship” is being steered—is not determined by you, but by someone else. This may not be such a bad thing for some people, but it also means that your livelihood is ultimately in someone else's hands. What if the owners of the company that you work for make a dumb decision that spells the end of the business? You will have to suffer the consequences anyway, even though it wasn't your fault.

More Cash

Of course, if you own your own business, you have the potential to make a lot more money than someone who doesn't. If you're an independent contractor, at the end of the day, the people above you are raking in the most money. Sure, as a merchant services representative, you might make a hefty percentage of that, but the fact of the matter is that your potential for financial growth is stunted. If you have a business that you control yourself, it is basically up to you how much money you want to make, and you keep more of the fruits of your hard work.

The Potential for Scale

The thing about a normal job, even a merchant services sales job, where you're working for someone else, is that you rarely have the possibility to scale things up. In other words, you can't “replicate” yourself by hiring someone else to do some of your tasks, and this can greatly reduce your long-term income potential. When you run your own merchant services business, you can choose to run it in many different ways, but one way is to outsource the work slowly until your business can practically run on its own. For true residual, passive income, this is the kind of situation that you will want to be in. This is what makes it possible for you to work because you want to, and to make money even in your sleep. You just can't do this when you work for someone else.

Now, you may be thinking: How to start a payment processing company? Maybe you've been a salesperson for awhile—maybe you've even been selling POS equipment and other important retail tools—but you're not sure how to make that leap into selling for yourself.

Well, unless you've invented and designed your own solutions, you're going to have to start by forming a partnership with a company that you believe in. They're going to have to make a product that you can really get behind because, if you're building a business for yourself, most of your money is ultimately going to come from the back-end, from repeat customers. This is why it is so important to take a step back and think about quality above anything else. By all means, find a program that is lucrative, but don't ever sell a product that you wouldn't feel enthusiastic about using yourself. In the end, this is what is really going to create repeat business.

What traits do you look for in a merchant services agent program, then? Don't be taken in by any fancy bells and whistles. Basically, these are the things you are going to want to see:

A History of Reliability

Again, there's no sense in selling shoddy services or products. Look up reviews of the company and decide if they are any good. Research their products and make sure that they are user-friendly. Find a way to use them if you can. The easiest products to sell are the ones that are actually good because they basically sell themselves time and time again.

Generous Revenue Share

Since this is going to be the core of your business, you are going to want to find a merchant services partnership that gives you a good cut of the sales. If you're doing all the work of finding and maintaining leads, then you need a fair percentage of what that customer is paying.

Residual Income

Part of what makes selling merchant services and POS services so lucrative is that there is often a monthly fee involved or else the merchant services company takes a percentage of the user's sales. As a partner, make sure that you have access to a significant portion of that long-term income as well. This is what is going to pay you month after month, even long after you have made the initial sale. This is where most of your money is, really.

Lots of Options and Flexibility

The company you work with should have lots of different options when it comes to revenue sharing, that way you will be able to build a strategy out of the one that best suits your business.


Become a payment service provider today and take your business to the next level. If you are a sales-oriented individual with vast experience in the world of payment processing or you are a driven and motivated professional looking for a new challenge, the SMG ISO agent program might be a great fit for you. With the highest paying commission structure in the industry, superior products, and sales support, our program will see to it that you are rewarded for your efforts.

For anyone with a sales background or a passion for the payments industry, SMG is the ideal partnership. There are dozens of reasons to become a sales partner with Shaw Merchant Group, but don’t just take our word for it. Here are some of the top reasons that we were given when we asked our ISO agent participants why they chose us and why they continue to work with our highly lucrative program.

Sales Partner Portal

With our industry leading partner portal, you’ll have access to online enrollment, training sessions, marketing materials, and you’ll always be ahead of the game with the latest news and promotions.

Alerts

Stay up-to-date on merchant issues and their resolutions via automated emails and text messages that include a detailed ticket number describing what the merchant’s concern was and how it was resolved.

Registered DBA (White Label)

With our program, you’ll be able to market under your own brand, without paying costly fees! Your brand will be seen on the partner portal, marketing communications, merchant statements, and more.

Free Equipment for Your Merchants

Selling businesses on a new processing plan is much easier when you are able to effortlessly jump over the hurdle of the cost of the equipment. With this program, you can offer your clients free equipment that they will need for their processing provider change. This lowers the barrier to switching and creates a higher conversion rate for you.

Lifetime Passive Income

You will recieve 50–70% of residual income based on the pay structure you select. You will share income on every available revenue stream. With SMG, you get a True Interchange Revenue Split. Unlike other ISO agent programs, there is no basis points off the top for BIN sponsorship or for what they call hidden losses. Our sales partners earn more residual income with our 50/50 partner program than you would with our competition who claim to offer a higher percentage because thier interchange cost (buy rate) is higher.

$20K Performance Bonus

We offer a performance-based fast start bonus that is payable for anyone that onboards more than the standard threshold of clients in the first 4 months. This program is designed to reward those experienced sales members that join our team and quickly learn how to sell this product. The bonus can reach up to $20,000, making it one of the most lucrative and competitive in the industry.

Profitability Based Bonuses

We will look at how much profit is generated on the account after they have been processing for one month and you earn 14 times of the total profit. Example: If we retain $100 in residuals in that month, the bonus would be 14 x $100 or $1,400. You would have already been paid $600, so we would pay you an additional $800 on that account. This bonus is capped at a max of $10,000 per merchant per location. With our dual pricing program it is easier than ever to earn huge bonuses with a 14x profitability bonus. This dual pricing model enables you to maximize your bonus at $10,000 on almost every merchant processing over $90k.

Dual Pricing Program

When you are selling merchant services, one of the best assets of any partner program is more rewards and incentive programs that save your client money. The Edge dual pricing program is one of the hottest new commodities in credit card processing, as it is designed to save the client thousands of dollars in credit card processing cost, instead passing on the fee to the consumer in a way that isn’t damaging to their own conversion rate and revenue. We offer this program to our clients and make it easy to understand and present for our sales partners.

Medical Benefits

With some sales jobs, you don’t even have the option for medical coverage. With the SMG ISO agent program, you’ll have the resources that you need to provide healthcare coverage to you and your family at an affordable rate. We take care of our own, and when you are in our program you will have access to these benefits.


Are you a merchant services representative or an Indendent Sales Organization that’s looking to make it to the big leagues of the merchant industry; the payment gateway providers? Well, it might require some serious investment to set up a complete infrastructure that can even break your bank. However, there’s an alternative - white label payment processing.

It’s a low investment, low-risk solution allowing you to set up your own payment gateway without having to manage any technical aspects of the payment gateway. Curious? Read on to know more about a regular payment gateway, how a white label payment gateway is different and what main advantages it can offer you.

Let’s Discuss What Payment Gateways Do:

Before we move towards the payment gateways for white label merchant services, let’s talk about the regular ones to ensure everyone reading this is on the same page. Payment gateways are crucial for every business for credit card transaction processing. When the card is swiped against the machine, the payment is cut and sent through the payment ‘gateway’ to the processor for authorization. This additional gateway ensures the security of customer’s data and the authenticity of their transaction.

Once it’s cleared, the information of the transaction is added to the credit card networks and sent to the bank that issued the card to the user (customer). If everything is correct and there’s a balance available to be charged, the transaction is approved; otherwise, due to any reason, it can get declined.

How Payment Gateways Do What They Do?

Payment gateways equip the merchants with interfaces and tools to collect the information for credit card transactions from the customers. This can be done in several ways. Most of the gateways offer APIs (Application Programming Interface) that enable the websites, business software, mobile applications, and POS (point of sale) device to connect and send transactions right to the payment gateway for authorization.

They also offer virtual terminal abilities allowing credit card info to be input directly in a webpage form, which can then be submitted for a transaction.

You can also find a range of value-added functions in payment gateways allowing merchants to easily manage their business and transactions. These added features can be fraud detection, recurring billing, tokenization, PCI compliance, and more.

Merchant Acquirers & Payment Gateways:

Merchant acquirers and ISOs (Independent Sales Organizations) act as agents/salesperson of the payment gateways by reselling their services to the merchants. ISOs or merchant acquirers employ a team of salespeople and support agents to connect with merchants, nurture them and eventually sell them the payment gateway’s services and equipment like POS machines.

Since it doesn’t really make sense for the merchant acquirers to build and manage their own gateways, they mostly partner with existing payment gateway service providers and get a small chunk of the pie. However, there’s an alternative, providing ISOs or merchant acquirers with opportunities to set up and differentiate their own payment gateway brands. This is where a white label payment gateway comes into play.

What’s a White Label Payment Gateway?

With the help of a white label payment gateway, you can get similar features and functions and perform the same duties as a payment gateway provider. However, there are many distinctions and benefit with the white label service. While the regular gateways get into contracts with the ISOs and merchant acquirers to resell their services, white label gateways allow and also prefer the ISOs and merchant acquirers to sell their services as their own with their own branding.

The merchant services resellers and ISOs have the liberty to use their logo, play with the branding and color scheme to match it with their own, and service the customers however they see fit.

Becoming a White Label Payment Provider:

If you become the payment gateway provider rather than reselling someone else’s, you’ll have several unique opportunities at hand. As the white label payment facilitator (Payfac), you can set your own profit margins and actively get your share of the revenue stream. This also means you will have the freedom to set up your very own brand, market it and get visibility rather than living under someone else’s shadow. You will have control over customer experience, and how you want to service them, which means direct customer acquisition.

Here are some more benefits that you experience when you become a white label payment provider:

  • You will not have to set up or manage the service by yourself. All the heavy lifting and technical aspects like infrastructure and security compliance will be taken care of for you.
  • You will get access to the shopping cart integrations processor connections of the platform, enabling you to offer solutions to a wider merchant group and take care of their needs.
  • You will get total control over the customer relations, meaning you will establish the rules for how your gateway equipment and products will be serviced and sold.
  • Every effort put in by you and your team into the promotion of payment gateway technology will enhance the worth, reputation, and value of your brand.
  • The use of a white-label payment gateway will solidify your relations with your merchants and put you in the position to meet their needs better.

Who White Label Payment Providers Partner With?

First things first, you need to know if you have the kind of business that can benefit from the white label payment provider. There are four kinds of resellers that will benefit from the white label model the most:

  • ISOs – Independent Sales Organizations
  • ISVs – Independent Software Vendors
  • VARs - Value Added Resellers
  • PayFac – Square or Paypal

When opting for a white label payments provider, work with someone having experience and a good track record of working with these business types.

Finding a Good Quality White Label Payment Services Provider:

To get the most value out of your while label gateway experience, it is imperative that you work with the provider offering exactly what you need so you can meet and exceed the needs of your merchants. To find that kind of service provider, here are a few questions you should ask:

  • Will you get access to their support service, guides, and training materials?
  • Do they have an intuitive payment gateway platform? You don’t want something that’s buggy and complex.
  • Can you rely on their platform? It should have 99.99% uptime; once it goes down, your payments won’t be processed until it's back on.
  • What about the security level of their platform? It should be encrypted with the latest and most impenetrable technologies.
  • Does it sell its services to the merchants directly?

Branding on Your Payment Gateway:

You will require a highly flexible platform that allows you to leverage your or your designer’s creativity and customize every aspect of the product/service. You would want to make the payment gateway your own in the truest sense of the word. Therefore, make sure to find out the branding options they have available that’ll allow you to brand your payment gateway exactly the way you want. Here is a small list of some things you should be able to make your own:

  • URL
  • Color scheme
  • Logo
  • Marketing guarantee
  • Font
  • APIs
  • Login portal
  • Brochures

Make sure to ask about all of these features’ customizability, so you know what to expect from the white label provider and if you want to go with them.

Types of Merchants on Your Gateway:

If you’re wondering what kind of merchants I can put on my white-label payment gateway, then the answer is; anyone you want. However, not every provider agrees to this, so make sure to ask this beforehand. The payment gateway provider must be able to offer you the liberty to get anyone on board and do business with them.

Some Final Considerations:

You will also need to find out about the third-party integration options, SDKs, and API functionality of the payment gateway. Some more important things to consider are:

• Who will own the website’s domain name?

• Who is going to bill the merchant?

• Who will manage the SSL Certificates?

• What kind of shopping cart integrations will you get?

• How the customer support to merchants will be handled?

• What kind of merchants will you be able to provide a platform to?

Final Words:

Remember, the best white label merchant services will have incredibly useful features to help you crush the competition and get as many merchants on board as you can. This can only happen if you have the freedom to have any merchant you want and your platform is robust enough with tons of useful features that attract them.


Credit cards are all the rage in the USA and have been for decades, and six out of ten Americans have at least one credit card. The number of credit card users has been growing each year exponentially. People use them as the primary mode of payment. Similarly, debit cards are widely used online payment substitutes, and the number of new users is rising worldwide. Today, debit card usage accounts for 25% of all purchase volume which was 13% in 2005.

Moreover, there were 45 billion dollars in credit card transactions in the year 2019. It means more volume of the transaction will increase demand for credit transaction processors. Payment processing companies act as a bridge between the merchant and the customers making the payments. This industry may be competitive, but it’s true that it can be very profitable. Do you want to become a merchant service agent, or wondering how to start a payment processing company? If yes, then read on to learn how to become a credit card processor.

How to become a credit card processor in 4 simple steps?

You might think it’s simple to become a credit card processor, but it is not as simple as it sounds. In fact, it is more than project projection, payment terminal, and POS options to get things started. Follow these steps if you are on a mission to becoming a merchant service provider.

Conduct Market Research

Market research will not only help you better understand your target market but also uncover insights about your competitors. So don’t forget to invest some time to conduct market research to analyze your competitors and potential clients. Determine the viability of new selling merchant services and the niche of the local retailers. Don’t forget to monitor how your competitors are doing business, their services, and the average fee their customers are paying for credit card processing.

Come up with a great deal for your future clients. If you offer to deal with a lower amount than your competitors, you will likely get more profit. All you need to go to your local market and create a survey to gather comprehensive information from your targeted audience about the service they use the most. Ask them about their current merchant service provider and check how much they are satisfied with them. And most importantly, don’t forget to collect the contact information of your potential clients, like their phone numbers and email address.

Plan Out How You Will Operate Your Business

The second step is to create a profitable business plan. It will give you an idea of how your credit card processing company will work. Plan out what kind of services you will offer and their pricing. Moreover, your business plan should also cover how large your sales team will be. In other words, it is a guideline that will help to make business-related decisions. Also include other details like how much capital you need to start a payment processing company, how you will obtain this capital, and how you will market your new business.

There are two main options for those who are becoming a credit card processor, i.e., start your own company or franchise (work under another company or brand) a credit card processing company. When you start your company independently, it offers various benefits. First of all, starting an independent business may cost less, and you earn more profit because there are no chances of getting your hand-tied in any contract or bad deal. In addition, it comes with downsides too. When you start a new company, no one recognizes you in the market, and you have to do a lot of hard work to beat your competitors around. Not only that, you should have good terms with banks to finance your company.

On the other hand, if you choose the second option, i.e., franchise an existing credit card processing company, forget about designing a winning business model, finding credit card terminals, machines, and other equipment, and build a relationship with finance resources like banks. However, if you choose this option, you will require big bucks to get started. Moreover, the parent company will also cut through some percentage of your profits.

Partner With The Bank

You need to partner with a bank to handle the interbank routing and get financing for operational costs. Initially, you need at least $50,000 capital to start a credit card processing company with a physical office location. If a contingency plan fails and unexpected expenses arise, consider a secondary source.

Execute Your Business Plan

Now, it’s time to execute your business plan and launch your company. Having a killer marketing strategy helps you grow your business exponentially. Your ultimate goal should be to stay ahead of your competitors. To reach out to more clients, business networking can help you rack up new contacts. Provide the best services as promised to your customers. Referrals from merchants play a crucial role in the company’s growth.

How To Sell Merchant Services

Want to know how to sell merchant services? Just keep in mind that there is no secret formula to selling it; it starts with you. First off, you should know how this transaction processing procedure works. You should be an expert as a credit card payment processor that helps you get more profit than MSPs (Merchant Service Providers). Over time, when you see more trade growth, people will recognize your business assets. Prepare your business assets like yellow and white pages, business cards, website, business cards, and local directory for your company and market them to grow your business.

Tips On Selling Merchant Services

One of the best tips on selling merchant services is that give your clients the reason to choose you. Don’t offer the same thing that other hundreds of merchant service providers are offering. Let them know what benefits they will get because only special discounts are not enough. A high percentage of profit is probably is more attractive to sell your merchant services. Don’t focus on discount price offer only. Show your numbers and merchant testimonials as your company’s proof of growth. Moreover, don’t hesitate to build a good relationship with them which helps you increase sales.


Are you excited to become a credit card processing agent? Do you want to start a credit card processing company? If your answer is YES, then you have come to the right place.

In this article, I am going to teach you ways to start a successful credit card processing company. I am also going to take you through the fine details of planning, setting up, and starting a credit card processing company.

You are going to learn about what it takes to become a successful credit card processing agent, how to conduct market and niche research, how to create a great business plan, how to get funding for your venture, and also tips to run a successful credit card processing company.

It is important to note that when you become a merchant service provider you will be helping corporate and businesses to process payment for their customers.

Your credit card processing services will involve offering the platform and equipment to facilitate the sending, approval, and processing of payments and transactions between customer’s bank accounts and your clients' bank accounts.

What It Takes To Become a Credit Card Processing Agent:

The credit card processing industry is very dynamic, and the success of becoming a merchant services agent is both easy and hard.

There are a few things that you need to know; some of these include having a clear understanding of how selling credit card processing works. You will also need to have deep knowledge of how credit cards work and what they do.

Another overly important thing that you will need to understand is your market and, most importantly, your niche market. This way, you will be able to connect with your customers on a personal level. In addition, you will also be able to create a solid relationship with banks for financial transactions and payment processing.

Market Feasibility and Niche Research

It is critical to note that any successful venture always starts with thorough research. When you want to become a credit card processing agent, you will need to do thorough market research.

Understand the type of services or products you will be offering and where your clients are and their needs.

Make sure that you look at the services offered by your competitors, their rates, and also how satisfied their customers are with the services they get.

The few steps you can take to become a merchant services reseller are to first create a survey on several businesses in your area, determine the most common services they use, and evaluate the satisfaction level of customers with their current payment providers.

Another important step that you need to take is to gather client information, such as phone numbers or email addresses. These details will help you when you start sending out pitches.

Crafting a Comprehensive Business Plan

For you to become a credit card processing agent and be successful in it, you will need to come up with a detailed business plan.

It is okay if you are not a seasoned writer, but you can hire one to do the work for you. Better still, there are several business plan templates available online that you can use.

There are several details that need to be included in your business plan; some of these details include:

  • How you intend to run your venture
  • The executive summary about your business
  • How you intend to raise startup capital
  • Products and services you will be offering
  • Marketing and sales analysis
  • SWOT analysis
  • And more

Ideally, the business plan for a credit card processing company can serve as proof to investors and stakeholders that you are serious about with your venture as the document shows all the strategies.

A great business plan can help you win funding from various investors and banks.

How to Finance Your Credit Card Processing Business

Most business requires a startup capital; the same case applies to credit card processing companies.

To become a credit card processing agent, you need to consider where you are going to get funding to start your venture. You will also need to cater for all the operational costs until you start realizing some profits.

According to research, on average, a minimum of $51,000 is needed to start a payment processing company.

There are options that you can use to get financing for your credit card processing company, some of these options include;

  • Getting a loan from banks
  • Approaching investors
  • Getting funding from business partners
  • Using your savings or selling assets to raise funds
  • Sourcing some funds from friends and family members.

Launching Your Merchant Services Reseller Company

Once all the above are set up, you can go ahead and launch your credit card processing company. There are other finer details that you will need to consider before you do this. These include finding the appropriate location for your business, understanding the requirements which you must have beforehand, and understanding the manpower needed to run the business.

To become a payment service provider, you should fully implement your business plan. The best way is to strictly follow the plan without cutting corners.

Tip: Due to the competitive nature of the credit card processing business, it is critical to ensure that your business stands out.

Put more efforts to stand out among your competitions. The best way to do this is to have a business network. You can reach out to organizations and corporations to widen your reach and customer base. 

Marketing Plan for Your Credit Card Processing Company

  • Just like any other business, a marketing plan is a must. You can do all the above work, but if you don’t come up with an effective marketing plan, you might fail.
  • Take your marketing strategies seriously. The following are some effective marketing ideas that you can use.
  • Use social media platforms to spread the word about your business
  • Reach out to stakeholders, clients, and managers of big corporations
  • Make sure that your business is listed in local directories
  • Use TVs, magazines, newspapers, and radio to advertise your business
  • Start bidding for available contracts

To further increase your reach to potential clients, you can create business cards, flyers, pamphlets, or business website.

Tips To Help You Run a Successful Credit Card Processing Business

In order to succeed in starting a processing processing company, understand that you will not only be providing requirements and services to help process payment for customers BUT also, you will be selling yourself. As a credit card processor, you will need to clearly show potential clients why they need your services. Show them the benefits they will get from your services. Never seize to reach out to potential customers. In addition, ensure that you do a follow up on those pitches. To simplify the process of becoming a credit card processing agent, North American Bancard provides all the tools you need for a successful credit card processing business.


All around the world, there are thousands of businesses that use vital services that are referred to as merchant services. These are services such as payment processing, which is what allows businesses to accept and process payments so that they can make a profit on their product. Without these services, businesses would be unable to function in the modern world. You might think that the fact that these services are an absolute necessity to these businesses make them an easy target for selling, but that is now always the case. There are definitely some positives as well as some negatives when selling merchant services.

This guide will show you some of each and hopefully give you some insight as to whether a career selling merchant services is right for you.

Pros

Undoubtedly, there are some very positive aspects of selling merchant services for a living. If you have had a sales job that is similar in the past, you already have known some of these benefits. Here are some of the best things about selling merchant services.

There is always a market

One of the best things about working in the merchant services industry is that there is never a lack of demand for these services. There are always new businesses sprouting up as people chase their passion for owning their own business. And existing businesses are always evaluating their options and ensuring that they are getting the best deal on the market. For that reason, you won’t ever have to worry about the industry as a whole drying up. People will always need to spend digital money and businesses will always need to find a way to accept it.

Set your schedule

For many that are in a commission-based sales job, one of the greatest benefits of it is being able to get to the point where you are working when you want to work instead of punching a time clock when you get to work. When you are a partner in a merchant services ISO agent program, you will be able to set your appointments on a schedule that works well for you.

Build passive income

Finding and signing clients to lucrative merchant processing contracts is hard work, nobody denies that. However, all of the hard work that you put into this process could end up paying out tenfold throughout the years. One of the greatest things about being a merchant services salesperson is that your accounts can earn you passive and residual income long after you have closed them to a contract. This could help you build passive income for years to come and eventually phase out the bulk of the labor that is involved in this career.

High commission rates

When you compare merchant services to other industries out there, you will find that it has a very competitive and comparatively high commission rate compared to those other industries. The high price of the contracts and the fact that they continue to pay out for years to come is what makes these sales so valuable and why some of the best salespeople in the world turn to merchant services when they want to increase their earning potential.

Cons

Just as there are many pros to selling merchant services, there are also some aspects that could prove difficult. You should watch out for these aspects and consider whether they are something that you are able to overcome and overlook.

Highly competitive industry

There is always a lot of demand for merchant services, but this fact also means that there is a lot of competition. One of the hardest aspects of selling merchant services is that you will always have competition breathing down your neck, waiting to provide your client with a better rate. This is really where your ability to create and nurture relationships will come in handy with client retention. This industry is not for those that don’t like competition and healthy capitalist tendencies.

Dependent on success to make money

When you are a merchant services representative in any industry, you know that your ability to make money is heavily dependent on the success that you have when selling your product or service. It’s no different in selling credit card processing accounts. If you want to have a good income, then you will need to become skilled at selling these products. If you don’t feel confident that you can do that, then it might not be the right choice for you.


Though you might hear the term ISO or Independent Sales Organization used a lot in the merchant services business, people don't always use it accurately. Let's take a look at what this term actually means according to credit card companies and banks.

What is an ISO?

Basically, a merchant services ISO program is an entity (a company or a person) who is not a MasterCard or Visa member bank—also known in general as Association members—yet they have a relationship with these banks. This can mean many things. For example, they may find new customers, offer customer service to the merchants, or sell terminals to them.

What is an MSP?

An MSP (Member Service Provider) is more or less similar to a credit card processing ISO program, though this isn't always exactly the case. An MSP is more of a “middle man” usually, a company that is often not an Association member, but who provides services to members.

What Do ISOs and MSPs Do For Their Banks?

First of all, remember that neither MSPs nor merchant services ISO agents are actually banks. The MSP / ISO will contract a processing bank to do this, and each MSP / ISO must have this kind of relationship with a bank to be able to process credit cards.

Under normal circumstances, the acquiring bank will be an Association member with both Visa and Mastercard, and they usually register for both at the same time. ISOs in turn can have relationships with more than one bank. By the way, these processing banks can also engage in vertical integration and become their own ISOs. This isn't common, though, and normally they will just specialize in processing credit cards, since it takes a lot of resources to draw in leads all the time.

An ISO is required to disclose their processing bank on their brochures, website, and other material. Usually, these are somewhere inconspicuous, like the bottom of a page.

How Does an ISO / MSP Register with the Credit Card Companies?

It's not exactly easy. First, the merchant services ISO needs to find a processing bank that will serve as a sponsor. Next, the merchant services ISO has to demonstrate to the companies that they have the means to perform their duties. Afterwards, there's lots of paperwork to do. For example, a merchant services ISO program might have to provide:

  • Financial statements / tax returns
  • Incorporation documents
  • Their business plan
  • Their sales material
  • A list of their sales agents

On top of all of that, the owners of the companies will also have their credit checked.

What Kind of Fees Does an ISO / MSP Have to Pay For Registration?

Once they are actually approved, the fees are $10,000 upfront. These fees are paid every year as well, as part of a review process.

What Are So-Called Sales Agents?

Many times it's helpful for merchant services ISOs to have an independent sales team, so they will hire sales agents to find interested merchants. According to MasterCard, a sales agent is someone who provides services to a member, but isn't an MSP. In other words, sales agents don't have to be Association members, since the merchant services ISO program is the one that takes care of the processing. Sales agents have to be registered, however, though the fee is quite negligible—something like $50 every year. Sales agents, though functioning somewhat independently, can't advertise as a service provider and have to use the name of their merchant services company.

What Option Works Best? 

Is it enough to be a merchant services sales agent? Or should you consider becoming a merchant services ISO or MSP, even though it requires going through all that bureaucratic process? Like anything else, this really depends. How much processing volume do you have? Obviously, you get a better price per transaction as a merchant services ISO, so you'll need to make some calculations and decide for yourself whether the increased profit margin is worth the overhead costs.

Be cautious, though, when looking at proposals from processing banks. There might be some fine print in there that can come back to haunt you. Specifically, look for fees that might cut into your profit, such as minimum processing fees. Minimum processing fees are charged when transaction fees during a certain period don't reach a minimum threshold.

These minimum processing fees can sometimes be really exorbitant, so watch out for them. Sometimes they can run into tens of thousands of dollars per month, and if you can't come up with the transaction fees, you'll be paying the difference yourself.

If you don't have a large portfolio yet, this can really harm you. Let's say the minimum processing fee for you is $6,000 every month. Let's say that, like many ISO's, you make an average of between $0.07 to $0.09 for every transaction. You would basically need to make 66,600 to 85,700 transactions on a monthly basis just to reach the minimum, which is unfeasible if you are a brand new company.

Usually, your processing bank will give you a period of time to build up your clientèle, however. If you think you can manage to reach a volume that surpasses the minimum processing fees by this time, then go right ahead and become a merchant service provider. However, make sure that you calculate everything very carefully.

By the way, since you're kind of expected to increase volume over time, the whole minimum processing fee can increase as well. That's right, a bank can progressively charge you more and more. For example, they may have given you a minimum fee of $4,000 in year 1, but every year that your contract renews, they might increase it by a lot—maybe even by the original amount, so that you're paying $4,000 more every subsequent year.

You can probably see why this would be a problem. Your fees are growing linearly, but your portfolio might not be. In fact, it is unlikely that your business would be able to support that amount of growth every year, unless your company is just so great that people are abandoning their merchant service agreements just to work with you. Either way, never sign an agreement that has fine print like this. Fees that increase like this are not very sustainable and you may get ripped off in the end.

Another (Not Great) Alternative

One thing you can do is to try to find a small bank that doesn't have any minimum fees at all. The problem here, though, is that their pricing might not be as good of a deal as larger processing banks, and their service might not be as reliable.

Besides, these smaller processors often have their own version of a minimum fee requirement—instead of transactions, they require you to bring in a certain number of new clients per month. If you don't comply, then you could stand to lose your residuals. In other words, you could have worked for years to build up a portfolio of dozens of merchants, and you could be bringing in a huge volume for your bank. You might have built up to tens of thousands of dollars per month for yourself, but your bank requires you to bring in five new merchants, and you only brought in four.

What happens? You lose all of your income, just like that. Does that sound fair to you? Your processor still has all of those accounts, but you are left in the dust. It's not really “passive income” if you have to keep adding a certain arbitrary amount of merchants per month, is it?

Conclusions

All of this can be confusing if you are new, but you can probably draw a few conclusions from it and get an idea of your game plan. To put it simply, if I had to start in this business over again knowing what I know now, I would just pick a large ISO and become a merchant services agent for them. This would help me learn about the industry and build up some income, and I wouldn't be risking falling victim to some fine print from my processing banks, or having to pay huge fees just to stay in business. I would work with several merchant services ISOs until I had decided which one was the best fit for me long-term.

After that, I would stop working with all of the other merchant services ISOs and concentrate on the best one exclusively until my volume had increased substantially. Once I thought I could pay all of the entry fees, I would consider becoming a merchant services ISO myself. I would speak with my merchant services ISO and see if they have a sponsorship program. Either way, I would shop around and be a hard negotiator, and not settle with a sponsor until I had a fair deal that I could actually work with.

Last, I'd hire an attorney to look over the paperwork. Yes, attorneys can be expensive, but in a business like this they are worth their weight in gold. You don't want to sign something without understanding all of the ramifications. Once that was settled and the deal seemed right, only then would I sign the agreement.

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Starting a payment processing company and becoming a registered ISO can be a lucrative business venture in today's digital age. As more and more businesses are moving towards accepting card payments, the demand for payment processing services is only becoming greater. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the steps of how to start a payment processing company and become a registered ISO.

Understanding the Payment Processing Industry

Before diving into the nuts and bolts of starting a payment processing company, it is important to have a solid understanding of the industry. Payment processing involves the electronic transfer of funds between a customer's bank account and a merchant's bank account. This process allows businesses to accept credit and debit card payments from their customers.

As a payment processor, you will be responsible for facilitating these transactions and ensuring that funds are securely and promptly transferred between the two parties. This involves setting up merchant accounts, processing transactions, and providing customer support to merchants.

Selling Merchant Services

One of the key aspects of starting a credit card processing company is selling merchant services. Merchant services include a range of products and services that help businesses accept credit and debit card payments. These services can include but are not limited to credit card processing, point-of-sale systems, payment gateways, and mobile payment solutions.

To sell merchant services, you will need to establish relationships with merchants and convince them of the benefits of using your payment processing services. This involves understanding their needs and providing them with cost-effective solutions that streamline their payment processes.

How to Sell Credit Card Processing

Selling credit card processing involves a combination of prospecting, networking, and relationship-building. To sell credit card processing services effectively, you need to identify potential leads, reach out to them, and present them with a compelling value proposition.

One effective strategy for selling credit card processing is to offer competitive rates and fees that will save merchants money compared to their current payment processor. You can also differentiate your services by providing additional features such as 24/7 customer support, fraud protection, and reporting tools.

Start a Credit Card Processing Company

To start a credit card processing company, you will need to acquire the necessary infrastructure and resources to facilitate payment transactions. This includes setting up merchant accounts with acquiring banks, obtaining payment processing software and hardware, and establishing relationships with card networks such as Visa and Mastercard.

You will also need to comply with industry regulations and standards to ensure the security and integrity of payment transactions. This includes obtaining PCI DSS compliance, implementing fraud prevention measures, and adhering to data protection laws.

Merchant Services ISO Program

Many payment processing companies offer Merchant Services ISO programs that allow individuals and businesses to become independent sales agents for their services. By joining an ISO program, you can access a range of benefits and resources to help you start and grow your payment processing business.

Benefits of joining a Merchant Services ISO program may include access to training and support, marketing materials, lead generation tools, and competitive pricing on credit card processing services. This can help you build a successful payment processing business while leveraging the resources and expertise of an established company.

Become a Payment Processor

To become a payment processor, you will need to register with card networks such as Visa and Mastercard as either an ISO or a payment facilitator. This involves meeting certain criteria and requirements, including having the necessary infrastructure and resources to process payment transactions securely.

Becoming a payment processor also involves establishing relationships with acquiring banks that will provide merchant accounts for your clients. Acquiring banks act as intermediaries between merchants and card networks, facilitating the transfer of funds between the two parties.

Credit Card Processing Agent Commission

As a credit card processing agent, you can earn commissions on every transaction processed through your merchant accounts. Commission rates can vary depending on the type of transaction, the volume of transactions processed, and the pricing structure of your payment processing services.

To maximize your commission earnings, you can focus on signing up high-volume merchants and negotiating competitive rates and fees with acquiring banks. This can help you generate a steady stream of residual income from ongoing merchant transactions.

Credit Card Processing Residual Income

Residual income is a key benefit of becoming a payment processor as it provides a steady stream of passive income from ongoing merchant transactions. Residual income is earned on a monthly basis and is calculated as a percentage of the total transaction volume processed through your merchant accounts.

By building a portfolio of high-volume merchants and offering competitive rates and fees, you can generate a substantial amount of residual income over time. This can provide you with financial stability and the opportunity to grow your payment processing business.

Merchant Services Partnerships

Establishing partnerships with other payment processing companies and industry vendors can help you expand your service offerings and reach a wider audience of merchants. By partnering with companies that offer complementary services, you can provide a comprehensive suite of solutions to your clients and differentiate yourself from competitors.

Partnerships can also help you access new markets, generate leads, and increase your revenue streams. By collaborating with other industry players, you can leverage their expertise and resources to grow your payment processing business.

ISO Agent Programs

ISO Agent programs are designed to help independent sales agents become successful in the payment processing industry. By joining an ISO Agent program, you can access training, support, and tools to help you build and grow your payment processing business.

Benefits of joining an ISO Agent program may include competitive pricing on credit card processing services, marketing materials, lead generation tools, and ongoing support from experienced industry professionals. This can help you kickstart your career as a payment processing agent and achieve your financial goals.

How to Become a Registered ISO

To become a registered ISO, you will need to meet the criteria and requirements set forth by card networks such as Visa and Mastercard. This includes having the necessary infrastructure and resources to process payment transactions securely, complying with industry regulations and standards, and establishing relationships with acquiring banks.

Becoming a registered ISO also involves submitting an application to the card networks and undergoing a thorough vetting process. This process may include background checks, financial audits, and compliance assessments to ensure that you meet the standards and requirements of the payment processing industry.

White Label Payment Processor

A white label payment processor is a company that offers payment processing services under the brand of another company. By white labeling payment processing services, you can leverage the reputation and brand recognition of a larger company while providing your clients with a seamless and integrated payment solution.

White label payment processors typically offer customizable solutions that can be branded with your company logo and colors. This allows you to offer a branded payment processing solution to your clients without the need to build and maintain your own payment infrastructure.

Conclusion

Starting a payment processing company and becoming a registered ISO can be a rewarding and profitable venture for individuals and businesses looking to enter the payment processing industry. By understanding the key aspects of the industry, selling merchant services, and leveraging ISO programs, you can build a successful payment processing business and generate a steady stream of income from merchant transactions.

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can start your journey towards becoming a payment processor and achieving your financial goals in the dynamic and fast-growing payment processing industry. With dedication, hard work, and a solid business strategy, you can build a successful payment processing company and establish yourself as a trusted provider of payment solutions for businesses around the world.


In today's world, where cashless transactions are becoming increasingly prevalent, becoming a payment processor can be a lucrative business opportunity. Payment processors play a crucial role in facilitating electronic payment transactions between merchants and their customers, helping businesses accept credit card payments and other forms of digital payments. If you're interested in starting a payment processing company or becoming a credit card processor, one option to consider is joining a Merchant Services ISO Program. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore what a Merchant Services ISO Program is, how to become a registered ISO, the benefits of white label payment processing for starting a payment processing company, how to become a credit card processor, and how to sell payment processing services to small businesses.

What is a Merchant Services ISO Program?

A Merchant Services ISO Program, also known as an Independent Sales Organization (ISO) Program, is a partnership program offered by payment processing companies to individuals or businesses interested in becoming payment processors. ISOs act as intermediaries between merchants and payment processors, helping merchants set up and manage their payment processing accounts. ISOs are responsible for acquiring new merchant accounts, providing customer support, and facilitating transactions on behalf of the payment processor.

How to Become a Registered ISO?

To become a registered ISO, you will need to partner with a payment processing company that offers ISO programs. The process of becoming a registered ISO typically involves the following steps:

Benefits of White Label Payment Processing for Starting a Payment Processing Company

White label payment processing allows you to resell payment processing services under your own brand, without having to develop your own technology or infrastructure. Some of the key benefits of white label payment processing for starting a payment processing company include:

How to Become a Credit Card Processor

To become a credit card processor, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Research the payment processing industry and understand the requirements for becoming a credit card processor.
2. Identify the target market for your payment processing services, such as small businesses, e-commerce companies, or high-risk merchants.
3. Choose a payment processing company that offers credit card processing services and partner with them to become a registered ISO.
4. Complete any necessary training or certification programs to become a credit card processor.
5. Acquire new merchant accounts and provide payment processing services to businesses that accept credit card payments.
6. Monitor and manage your merchant accounts to ensure compliance with industry regulations and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction.

How to Sell Payment Processing Services to Small Businesses

Selling payment processing services to small businesses can be a profitable venture, as many small businesses are looking for affordable and reliable payment processing solutions. Here are some tips for selling payment processing services to small businesses:

1. Identify the needs of small businesses: Understand the unique needs and challenges faced by small businesses when it comes to accepting credit card payments.
2. Offer competitive pricing: Small businesses are often price-sensitive, so offer competitive rates and transparent pricing to attract their business.
3. Provide personalized customer service: Offer personalized customer service and support to small businesses to help them set up and manage their payment processing accounts.
4. Highlight the benefits of your services: Clearly communicate the benefits of your payment processing services, such as fast transactions, secure payments, and reliable customer support.
5. Build relationships with small business owners: Establish strong relationships with small business owners through networking, referrals, and word-of-mouth marketing.

In conclusion, becoming a payment processor or starting a payment processing company can be a rewarding and profitable business opportunity. By joining a Merchant Services ISO Program, you can access the resources and support you need to succeed in the payment processing industry. Whether you choose to become a white label payment processor, a credit card processor, or sell payment processing services to small businesses, the key to success lies in understanding your target market, offering competitive pricing, and providing exceptional customer service. With the right strategies and determination, you can build a successful payment processing business and help businesses of all sizes accept electronic payments seamlessly.


How to Maximize Your Residual Income with Merchant Services Commission Structure

If you're looking to boost your earnings and take control of your financial future, you've come to the right place. In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, residual income has become an increasingly popular and lucrative option. And with merchant services commission structures, the possibilities are endless. We're here to guide you through the process, offering valuable insights and strategies to help you optimize your earnings. Whether you're a seasoned merchant services professional or just starting your entrepreneurial journey, get ready to unlock the secrets to a thriving residual income stream. Let's dive in and discover the keys to your financial success!

Exploring Merchant Services Commission Structure

When considering the potential earnings as a merchant services agent, it is crucial to delve into the commission structure offered by various companies. A thorough understanding of this aspect reveals that different companies present varying commission rates, which directly impact the amount of money one can make. For instance, certain companies may provide a fixed-rate commission for every transaction, whereas others may have variable rates determined by the transaction size or overall business volume. As a merchant services agent, it is essential to navigate through these options and select the company that offers the most favorable commission structure. By confidently analyzing and comparing the commission rates of different merchant services providers, one can determine how much money they can potentially earn in this field.

Next, when determining how much money you can make selling merchant services, it is crucial to take into account the credit card processing residual income. By carefully evaluating the average transaction size of your target customer base, you can estimate the potential earnings from merchant services commissions. For instance, focusing on small businesses with an average transaction size of $50 provides an opportunity to earn higher commissions compared to targeting larger businesses with an average transaction size of $500. This residual income can prove to be significant and provide a steady stream of revenue, allowing you to confidently build a profitable business in the merchant services industry.

Calculating Your Potential Earnings

If you're considering a career in merchant sales jobs and wondering how much money you can make selling merchant services, it's important to understand that calculating potential earnings is a complex process. The amount you can earn depends on various factors, such as the type of merchant services you're selling, your target customer base, and the level of competition in your area. With the right approach and a confident tone, you can tap into a lucrative market and potentially achieve substantial financial success.

When delving into the potential earnings from selling merchant services, it is vital to thoroughly analyze both commission-based sales and residual income opportunities. Commission-based sales guarantee a one-time payout for each successful sale, reflecting an immediate return on investment. However, the true allure lies in the prospect of credit card processing residual income. This source of long-term earnings has the remarkable ability to continuously grow over time, providing a sustainable financial stream. By capitalizing on residual income, individuals can confidently project steady revenue that steadily increases as their client base expands.

Thereafter, it becomes evident that in order to truly gauge the potential earnings from selling merchant services, one must take into account the entirety of the associated costs. This includes not only the obvious factors such as the cost of acquiring the necessary tools and resources, but also the less apparent expenses such as marketing and overhead costs. By meticulously analyzing and understanding all of these factors, one can develop a comprehensive picture of the financial prospects within the merchant services industry. Armed with this knowledge and a confident understanding of the business, individuals can confidently venture into this lucrative field and capitalize on the prosperous opportunities it presents. So, if you are wondering how much money you can make selling merchant services, remember to consider all costs involved and be confident in your ability to maximize your potential earnings in this dynamic and ever-growing market.

Strategies to Maximize Your Residual Income 

When it comes to maximizing your residual income from selling merchant services, understanding the most effective strategies can significantly impact your earnings. This is particularly important when you ask yourself, "how much can you make selling merchant services?" By implementing certain tactics, such as offering value-added services like gift card programs, loyalty programs, and online payment solutions, you can significantly boost your potential earnings. These strategies have proven to be highly effective in increasing the revenue generated from merchant service sales. Therefore, by confidently adopting these techniques and providing these additional services to your clients, you can increase your chances of making more money selling merchant services.

Similarly, as a merchant services agent, developing strong customer relationships is vital for maximizing your earning potential in this industry. By actively cultivating these relationships with clients, you not only ensure repeat business but also solidify your reputation as a trusted and reliable professional. This, in turn, leads to more referrals from satisfied clients, ultimately increasing your chances of securing new business opportunities and generating higher levels of residual income. In conclusion, by focusing on building and maintaining strong customer relationships, you can confidently expect long-term success and significant financial rewards in the field of merchant service sales.

Establishing Financial Goals & Monitoring Progress

When it comes to selling merchant services, establishing financial goals is the ultimate key to staying on track. To ensure your success, it is crucial to set up a well-defined budget that takes into account your income goals. It is important to keep in mind that the more you sell, the higher your income can be. With a confident tone, it is essential to recognize the potential of credit card processing residual income. By diving into this lucrative opportunity, you have the chance to earn a substantial amount of money by simply offering merchant services. The beauty of residual income lies in the fact that you can generate a steady stream of earnings even after making the initial sale. So, as you embark on your journey in selling merchant services, remember to envision the incredible financial possibilities that credit card processing residual income can bring your way.

When it comes to selling credit card processing services and determining how much money you can make, it is crucial to track your progress regularly. By noting customer purchases, renewal dates, and any additional costs associated with each sale, you can gain valuable insights into your performance. Tracking your progress allows you to evaluate whether you are meeting your goals or if adjustments need to be made. This analytical approach will provide you with a clear and confident understanding of your profitability in the merchant services industry.

Furthermore, consistent tracking and reviewing of your performance, both on a weekly and monthly basis, is essential in determining whether you are well on the way to achieving your financial objectives in selling credit card processing services. By diligently keeping tabs on your progress, you not only stay informed about the profitability of your efforts but also gain valuable insights into areas where adjustments or additional steps may be necessary for ensuring successful sales. This proactive approach guarantees that you stay ahead in the competitive market, make informed decisions, and maximize your earning potential. Remember, continuous monitoring and evaluation of your performance are key to financial success in this sector.

Final Say

In conclusion, maximizing your residual income with a merchant services commission structure is a proven pathway to financial success. By leveraging this powerful tool in the ever-changing business landscape, you can unlock endless possibilities and optimize your earnings. With the insights and strategies we've provided, both seasoned professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs can confidently embark on their journey towards a thriving residual income stream. So, dive in, embrace the challenges, and seize the opportunities – because when it comes to securing your financial future, there's no better time than now. Get ready to embark on a journey filled with abundance and success!


How to Dominate the Credit Card Processing Market: 10 Strategies to Launch and Grow Your White Label Merchant Services

Are you ready to take the credit card processing market by storm? Look no further than this ultimate guide on how to dominate the industry and skyrocket your success with white label merchant services. Whether you're an established player or just starting out, we've got you covered with 10 powerful strategies that will give you the edge needed to launch and grow your business. With our proven methods, you'll learn how to attract a steady stream of loyal clients, increase profitability, and establish yourself as a key player in the market. Get ready to leave your competitors in the dust as you confidently carve your path to success in the credit card processing industry.

Introduction: What is Payment Processing?

To become a payment processing company, it is essential to understand the intricacies of payment processing. Payment processing is a crucial task that involves securely and accurately transferring funds from a customer's bank account, credit card, or other payment method to a business's account. This process is the backbone of financial transactions in today's digital era, ensuring smooth and reliable transactions for both customers and businesses. One way to expand your payment processing business is by establishing a payment processing affiliate program. With such a program, you can attract strategic partnerships with individuals and businesses looking to promote your payment processing services. By offering competitive commission rates, a user-friendly interface, and robust support, you can confidently build and expand your payment processing network while continuing to provide secure and efficient services.

If you're wondering how to become a payment processing company and enter the world of financial transactions, there are a few key considerations to keep in mind. First, it's important to note that payment processing doesn't solely refer to online payments. It actually encompasses a wide range of payment methods, including phone orders, in-person purchases, checks, and various other forms of payment. By recognizing this breadth of services, you can position yourself to become a comprehensive payment provider capable of meeting diverse customer needs. With confidence and determination, you can navigate the requirements and regulations necessary to establish your own payment processing company.

Additionally, businesses looking to become a payment processing company and start selling merchant services must ensure they have robust security measures in place to protect sensitive customer information. This involves implementing encryption technology, adhering to industry regulations such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance, and regularly conducting security audits. By partnering with a leading payment service provider, businesses can access the necessary tools and technology to seamlessly accept payments from customers, thereby expanding their revenue streams and enhancing their overall competitiveness in the market. With a confident and well-executed application process, businesses can position themselves as trusted payment processing providers, helping merchants efficiently manage their transactions and contributing to their long-term success.

Understanding Market Needs and Competition

To become a successful payment processing company, it is essential to have a deep understanding of the market needs and competition. One must undertake thorough research to identify the types of payment methods currently being used and examine any gaps in the existing offerings. This comprehensive analysis will allow companies to tailor their services to meet the specific requirements of the market. Additionally, it is crucial to consider partnering with the best ISO agent program in order to leverage their expertise, resources, and established network. Collaborating with a reputable ISO agent program will provide companies with the necessary tools and support to effectively navigate the payment processing industry. With confidence in our research and partnership with a leading ISO agent program, we are poised to thrive in this competitive market and offer unparalleled payment solutions to our customers.

To become a successful payment processing company, it is crucial to recognize the significance of customer preferences in determining their preferred payment method. Understanding the features and benefits provided by competitors is equally important. By gaining a comprehensive understanding of market needs and the competitive landscape, you can create a business strategy that is tailored to better meet these requirements compared to your rivals. This is particularly relevant for Credit Card Processing ISO programs, where a confident and informed approach can help your company excel in this space. By thoroughly analyzing customer preferences and studying your competitors' offerings, you can position your business as a reliable and innovative payment processing provider, surpassing the expectations of both customers and competitors alike.

Also, in order to become a successful payment processing company, it is crucial to consider the implementation of white label card machines. These machines allow your company to provide a seamless and customized payment experience for customers, enabling them to easily make transactions. By offering white label card machines, you can differentiate yourself from competitors and stand out in the market. Furthermore, continuously assessing the customer experience is essential in ensuring that your payment processing company offers an enhanced service. This can be achieved by analyzing customer reviews and feedback, which serve as valuable insights for identifying areas that need improvement or enhancement. By proactively addressing customer concerns and constantly striving for improvement, your company can establish itself as a trusted and preferred choice in the payment processing industry.

Establishing a White Label Merchant Service

Establishing a white label merchant service is an essential and integral step that cannot be overlooked when aiming to become a successful payment processing company. Aspiring entrepreneurs in the payment processing industry must recognize the significance of this process. By offering white label merchant services, businesses can seamlessly integrate their own branding and identity into the payment solutions they provide. This not only enhances their credibility and reputation but also allows them to cater to a wide range of clients and industries. Additionally, having a white label merchant service enables companies to offer innovative and tailored solutions to meet the specific needs of their clients. It empowers them to stay ahead of the competition by offering unique value propositions and gaining a competitive edge in the market. Furthermore, acquiring a white label merchant service allows businesses to tap into the growing demand for online payment processing, which has witnessed exponential growth in recent years. With e-commerce flourishing, more merchants are seeking reliable payment processing solutions to support their business operations. By offering merchant account sales jobs, companies can attract skilled professionals who possess the knowledge and expertise required to excel in the field. This, in turn, strengthens the company's workforce, fostering growth and expanding its reach in the market. Therefore, establishing a white label merchant service is not just a crucial step but an indispensable one for any aspiring payment processing company aiming to thrive in today's competitive landscape.

When embarking on the journey to become a payment processing company, one crucial factor to guarantee success is the selection of a white label partner with an established platform and a proven track record of providing reliable service. This choice holds immense importance as it directly impacts the overall efficiency and credibility of the business. By partnering with an experienced and reputable white label provider, the company can tap into their extensive knowledge and expertise in the payment processing industry. Furthermore, a well-established platform ensures seamless integration and a wide range of payment options for customers. In this highly competitive market, it is vital to emphasize the importance of selecting a trustworthy partner that can deliver on their promises consistently. Hence, when considering how hard it is to sell credit card processing, aligning with an established white label partner should be considered an absolute priority to confidently set the stage for sustainable success.

Furthermore, by acquiring the necessary tools and resources and creating your own customised payment processing solutions, you are setting yourself up for success in the payment processing industry. This not only allows you to cater to the specific needs of your clients and customers, but also gives you a competitive edge in the market. With your own tailored solutions, you can offer better rates, improved security measures, and enhanced functionality, all of which will attract more clients and generate higher revenue. So, how much money do you need to start a credit card processing company? While the initial investment may vary depending on the scale of your operations and the level of customization you aim for, the potential returns on this investment can be substantial. With a confident approach and a commitment to innovation, you can establish yourself as a prominent player in the payment processing industry, providing reliable and efficient services to businesses and individuals alike.

Benefits of Offering White Label Merchant Services

If you are looking for ways to become a payment processing company, offering white label merchant services can be a game-changer. By doing so, you have the opportunity to enhance your competitive edge by providing a comprehensive suite of services to your clients. This includes not only credit card processing but also a range of other payment options and solutions. By becoming a payment processing company, you position yourself as a one-stop-shop for businesses looking to streamline their payment processes. This can give you a significant advantage in the market, as businesses can rely on your expertise and solutions to efficiently and securely handle their transactions. With the ability to sell credit card processing, you can confidently approach potential clients, knowing that you have the tools and knowledge to meet their needs. By offering a white label solution, you also have the flexibility to brand the services as your own, further establishing your credibility in the industry. In summary, becoming a payment processing company and offering white label merchant services positions you as a leader in the field, allowing you to confidently provide businesses with an all-inclusive payment solution package.

By offering white label merchant services, payment processing companies can greatly expand their range of services in a cost-effective manner. This allows them to cater to a wider audience without having to invest extensively in developing their own technology or products. By leveraging white label solutions, these companies can tap into existing, well-established platforms and leverage their expertise to provide seamless payment solutions. This significantly reduces the time and resources required, presenting an opportunity to quickly enter the market and generate revenue. So, how do payment processors make money? By offering these white label merchant services, payment processors can earn revenue through various channels such as transaction fees, monthly service charges, and value-added services. They can also establish partnerships with banks and financial institutions, enabling them to earn a percentage of each transaction processed. As a payment processing company, embracing white label merchant services not only allows for cost savings but also opens doors to new revenue streams, ultimately contributing to the success and growth of the business.

If you are aspiring to become a payment processing company, white label merchant solutions are a vital tool to consider. These solutions offer a valuable opportunity for you to maintain your independence while collaborating with other payment providers. By doing so, you can enhance your offerings and provide a comprehensive range of features under one provider, ultimately simplifying the process for businesses to seamlessly integrate and manage payments. Additionally, by joining a payment processing affiliate program, you can further expand your network and leverage partnerships to maximize the potential of your company. Embracing these white label solutions positions you confidently in the market, enabling you to offer exceptional payment processing services while establishing valuable connections with other industry-leading providers.

Besides increasing brand recognition, offering white label merchant solutions can also be a lucrative endeavor for those aspiring to become a payment processing company. By providing customers with a personalized and secure payment processing experience, businesses can build trust, attract new clients, and retain existing ones. The ability to offer tailored services not only strengthens the company's reputation but also opens up opportunities for generating revenue. With an effective marketing strategy in place, businesses can capitalize on this niche market and monetize their merchant services. So, to answer the question of "can you make money with merchant services," the resounding answer is yes. By prioritizing customer satisfaction and utilizing white label solutions, businesses can confidently enter the payment processing industry, forge partnerships, and reap the financial benefits that come with it.

Setting Sales Goals and Strategies

Setting sales goals is an essential part of becoming a successful payment processing company in the competitive market of merchant services. To embark on this journey, it is crucial to determine specific sales goals that align with your vision and objectives. By establishing these goals, you are setting a clear path towards success. Equally important is devising effective strategies that will enable you to reach these goals efficiently. Crafting a well-thought-out merchant services business plan is integral in this process, as it will not only aid in defining your target market and positioning but also provide a roadmap for achieving your sales objectives. With a confident tone, take charge of your future as a payment processing company by setting ambitious sales goals and implementing strategic plans to excel in the dynamic industry of merchant services.

In order to successfully establish and thrive as a payment processing company, it is imperative to thoroughly analyze current market trends and carefully consider customer feedback. By doing so, we can develop realistic sales strategies that specifically target the right customers and effectively capitalize on any available opportunities. Conducting a comprehensive study of the credit card processing industry, including Credit Card Processing ISO programs, will enable us to confidently identify the areas of growth and potential expansion. This proactive approach will enable us to position ourselves as a reliable and trusted provider in the market, ensuring long-term success and customer satisfaction. With an unwavering commitment to staying ahead of market trends and addressing customer needs, we can confidently establish ourselves as a leading payment processing company.

Thus, in order to become a successful payment processing company, it is essential to leverage technology and automated solutions such as CRMs. These tools not only enable businesses to track progress towards their goals, but also maximize efficiency in the overall sales process. By implementing such sophisticated systems, companies can better manage their customers, leads, and accounts, ensuring seamless operations and streamlined workflows. Additionally, by embracing these technological advancements, aspiring payment processing companies can position themselves as ISO agents, equipped with the necessary tools and expertise to provide exceptional services to clients. Embracing automation and utilizing CRMs will undoubtedly lead to success in the competitive payment processing industry.

Developing an Effective Marketing Plan

To become an ISO agent and establish a successful payment processing company, it is crucial to begin by comprehending the distinctive aspects that set your services apart from other companies in the market. By identifying the unique features and benefits you offer, you can effectively position yourself to create value for potential customers. With a confident tone, you can confidently showcase the advantages of your payment processing solutions and highlight how they can meet and exceed the needs of your target audience. By thoroughly understanding what sets you apart, you can develop an effective marketing plan that effectively communicates your value proposition and effectively differentiates your company from the competition.

When aspiring to become a payment processing company, it is crucial to carefully analyze and select the most suitable channels for reaching your target market. While online ads can be a powerful tool, considering other avenues such as direct mail or actively participating in industry events and conferences can also yield significant benefits. By developing an integrated marketing plan that encompasses multiple channels, you can effectively ensure maximum market outreach and enhance overall effectiveness. Additionally, it is worth exploring the potential of a payment processing affiliate program to further expand your business and establish mutually beneficial partnerships within the industry. Adopting this confident approach will enable you to confidently navigate the competitive landscape and establish yourself as a prominent player in the payment processing realm.

Thereafter, once you have developed a solid marketing plan that includes all the necessary elements, it’s time to put it into action! With a confident mindset and a well-executed strategy, you can now embark on the journey of becoming a successful payment processing company. Monitor the results of your efforts closely and be prepared to make adjustments as needed to optimize your results. As you navigate this path, you may wonder about the financial aspect of starting a payment processing company, specifically how much it costs. While the initial investment can vary depending on factors such as equipment, software, and licensing fees, it is important to understand that the potential for growth and profitability in this industry is significant. By staying focused, adaptable, and attentive to market trends, you can confidently build a thriving payment processing company that offers reliable and efficient services to businesses around the world.

Utilizing Online Resources to Increase Visibility

Utilizing online resources is an essential strategy for any aspiring payment processing company looking to establish its presence and attract a vast customer base. In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for success. By leveraging various online platforms and resources, such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and content creation, payment processing companies can significantly increase their visibility. One effective way to achieve this is through participating in a payment processing affiliate program, which allows companies to collaborate with affiliates and promote their services in exchange for commission on sales generated. By tapping into this network of affiliates and utilizing their online channels, businesses can amplify their exposure, reaching potential customers they may not have otherwise accessed. This confident approach to harnessing online resources ensures that payment processing companies can effectively showcase their offerings and attract new customers, ultimately driving growth and success in the competitive market.

To become a payment processing company, it is crucial to leverage the power of online platforms to effectively, and confidently, expand your audience. One highly effective strategy is to utilize social media, which allows you to connect with potential customers and establish a strong online presence. Additionally, implementing search engine optimization (SEO) techniques will enable you to improve your website's visibility in search engine rankings, ensuring that interested parties can easily find you. Furthermore, online advertising presents a powerful tool to target specific demographics and engage with potential clients directly. By incorporating keywords such as "merchant services affiliate program," you can attract individuals interested in partnering with your business and expanding your network. Overall, embracing these online platforms will undoubtedly propel your journey towards establishing a successful payment processing company.

If you're looking to establish yourself as a successful payment processing company, optimizing your website content for SEO is crucial. By doing so, you can position yourself at the top of search engine results when potential customers are actively seeking out payment processing solutions. With the right SEO strategies in place, including incorporating keywords like "white label payment gateway," you can confidently attract and capture the attention of your target audience. By appearing prominently in search results, you'll boost your visibility and showcase your expertise in the industry, ultimately paving the way for your company's success in the competitive payment processing market.

Again, it is important to emphasize the significance of establishing a strong presence on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter when looking to start a credit card machine business and become a payment processing company. Through these channels, building brand recognition becomes easier as customers are increasingly engaged with your business. By actively participating in conversations, sharing relevant content, and responding promptly to customer queries, you can foster a sense of trust and credibility among your target audience. The power of social media cannot be underestimated, as it allows for widespread visibility and the opportunity to showcase the unique value proposition of your payment processing services. Utilizing these platforms effectively will undoubtedly contribute to the growth and success of your credit card machine business.

Optimizing Business Processes for Efficiency and Growth

In order to successfully establish oneself as a payment processing company, it is crucial to adopt a strategic approach that emphasizes the optimization of business processes for enhanced efficiency and growth. Key areas of focus include streamlining customer onboarding procedures, automating essential tasks like recurring payments, and developing a dependable and secure online checkout system. By prioritizing these elements, businesses can ensure a seamless experience for their clients while maintaining the highest level of security for financial transactions. As part of this endeavor, it is imperative to understand the role of a credit card processing agent. A credit card processing agent serves as an intermediary between merchants and payment processors, facilitating the seamless transfer of funds from customers' credit cards to merchants' accounts. These agents play a pivotal role in ensuring a smooth payment process, managing transactional data, and maintaining compliance with relevant regulations. Their expertise is instrumental in enhancing the overall effectiveness and reliability of a payment processing company's operations. Embracing these strategies and comprehending the significance of credit card processing agents are fundamental steps toward establishing a successful payment processing company.

To successfully enter the payment processing industry, it is crucial to continuously monitor the performance of each process. This proactive approach allows you to identify areas that require improvement and implement changes that will ultimately increase efficiency. By utilizing data analysis tools, you can more effectively understand customer pain points and subsequently enhance user experiences. These insights will enable you to stay ahead of the competition and confidently navigate the payment processing landscape. Remember, continuous improvement and a data-driven approach are key when determining how to get into the payment processing industry.

Next, it is important to consider the initial costs associated with starting a payment processing company. While the precise figure may vary depending on various factors such as the size of your business and the services you plan to offer, it is crucial to recognize that an optimized business process can significantly contribute to cost reduction in the long run. By streamlining operations and eliminating inefficiencies, you will be able to minimize expenses and maximize profits. Moreover, an optimized business process will not only enhance cost-effectiveness but also improve overall customer satisfaction. By providing prompt and secure payment processing solutions, your customers will be more inclined to trust and rely on your services, ultimately leading to increased revenue and a healthier bottom line. By investing in an optimized business process, you are making a confident decision that will enable your payment processing company to thrive and succeed in the long term.

Leveraging Customer Insights for Custom Solutions

The commercialization of payment processing has presented an incredible opportunity for companies aspiring to become payment service providers. By capitalizing on this trend, businesses can harness customer insights and utilize them to develop customized solutions that cater to individual customer requirements. This transformative approach ensures that customers' distinct needs are met with precision and efficiency. To achieve success in the payment processing industry, companies must fully grasp the value of customer insights and effectively incorporate them into their tailor-made solutions. By doing so, businesses can confidently position themselves as leaders in this rapidly evolving space, offering unparalleled services that perfectly align with the unique needs of their customers.

In the fast-paced world of payment processing, companies that possess the capability to offer customized payment solutions can truly establish themselves as leaders in the industry. By doing so, they gain a significant competitive advantage over their rivals by providing value-added services that go beyond the standard transactional offerings. One of these value-added services is real-time analytics, where companies can provide their clients with valuable insights and data regarding their payment activities. This enables businesses to make informed decisions and optimize their operations for better efficiency and profitability. Another crucial value-added service is fraud protection, which is of utmost importance in today's digital landscape. Companies that can offer robust fraud prevention measures and ensure secure transactions instill confidence in their clients and establish themselves as trusted partners. Additionally, an automated dispute resolution system can save both time and resources for businesses by streamlining the process and swiftly resolving any payment disputes that may arise. With these value-added services, companies can further solidify their position as payment processing experts, attracting more clients and staying ahead of the competition. Now, aspiring entrepreneurs may wonder, "How much does it cost to start a payment processing company?" However, with the confidence gained through these customized payment solutions, a well-crafted business plan, and an understanding of the industry's intricacies, one can confidently embark on this journey to success.

By leveraging customer insights, companies can build deeper relationships with their customers, which can in turn lead to increased loyalty and retention rates. When it comes to becoming a payment processing company, understanding the needs and preferences of customers becomes even more crucial. By actively listening to customer feedback and analyzing their behaviors, aspiring payment providers can gain valuable insights into what features and services are most in demand. This knowledge can then be used to develop innovative payment solutions that truly cater to the needs of both businesses and consumers. By harnessing these insights, companies can confidently position themselves as industry leaders and trusted partners in the evolving world of digital payments. So, how do you become a payment provider? By putting customer insights at the forefront of your strategy and continuously adapting to their changing needs, you can build a successful and thriving payment processing company.

Besides, utilizing customer data and insights is crucial for companies looking to start a payment processing business. By analyzing and understanding customer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns, these companies can create targeted campaigns and offers that are tailored to the individual needs of their customers. This personalized approach not only increases customer satisfaction but also enhances conversion rates and drives overall revenue growth. With the ability to provide customized solutions and experiences, payment processing companies can confidently position themselves as industry leaders, attracting a loyal customer base and staying ahead of the competition. By leveraging customer data and insights, these companies can establish a strong foundation for success in the payment processing industry.

Wrapping up

In conclusion, this ultimate guide on how to dominate the credit card processing market and grow your white label merchant services is your ticket to success. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting out, our 10 powerful strategies will undoubtedly give you the edge you need. With our proven methods, you'll attract a loyal client base, increase profitability, and establish yourself as a key player in the industry. So get ready to leave your competitors in the dust as you confidently carve your path to success in the credit card processing market. Don't wait any longer; it's time to take charge and dominate the industry.


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© Shaw Merchant Group is a registered DBA of EPX, a registered ISO of BMO Harris Bank N.A., Chicago, IL, Fresno First Bank, Fresno, CA, and Citizens Bank N.A., Providence, RI.