I know this comes up alot, but I still haven't got my head around which is a suitable on-line payment method for a start-up business yet. Bank Merchant ID Account someone told me that it's easy to get a merchant account with a bank & they were told it was a simple process that would take a couple of minutes to set up for them. they are a start-up on-line business with no trading history, is it a case of just asking the bank to set up a merchant account & they do it ??? sounds way too 'easy' to me. Is security better with your own merchant account ID ?(through a bank) 3rd party providers I've read elsewhere on this forum there are upfront fees to pay with a bank just like worldpay . www.nochex.com sounds like a good(ish)UK provider, (that don't require a customer to register) and www.ccnow.com are an international provider which sound okay. Secure Payments Anyone heard of the Visa Verified program ? in the US both customers & merchants can use this service to prevent fradulent use of your credit card/account - I read somewhere that on-line merchants can get this in the UK to help prevent fraud. PayPal (Capitalone verified ???[]) At the moment I'm just accepting PayPal - as a Capital One fraud prevention advisor told me that PayPal is one of the safest ways for consumers to buy over the Internet - if my creditcard company are telling me Paypal is up there with other SAFEST on-line payment methods, what does this say about all the claims that Paypal is bad for some businesses images, if it's rated highly by the people that give out credit cards, what does this say about the more 'respected' providers ? should I be spending my cash on a merchant account at all or am I just buying the image and the security level is the same regardless ?