What is a merchant account and integrated payments?

A merchant account is a service offered by merchant providers, and lets you accept EFTPOS or credit card payments for goods and services. Point of sale platforms which offer integrations with merchant processing (card payments) will, when you click the pay button, post the value of a sale to your merchant providers card swipe machine, pin pad or website, which then notifies the point of sale automatically if the payment was successful or not.

Note that integrated card payments for point of sale are slightly different from e-commerce payment gateways, in which the customer is directed to a payment page where they enter their own details (this is explained well on the Shopify website).

However most merchant providers offer solutions for both point of sale integrated card payments AND e-commerce payment gateways.

Does Vend offer integrated card payments?

Yes we do!

Vend currently offers integrated credit card or EFTPOS payments with merchant providers Element Payment Services in the US and Payment Express in Australia/New Zealand, with more to follow very soon. Details on configuring integrated merchant card processing with these services can be found here:

Element Payment Services (US)

We understand that your business needs flexibility and choice when it comes to selecting a payment processor.  As a full service processor, Element can replace your current merchant services provider and process your payments directly-eliminating costly gateway fees and middleman mark-ups, while serving as a single point of contact for support-related inquiries.

If you are locked into a contract or simply want to stay with your current provider, Element has a solution for you.  Our "Gateway Cloud Services" leaves your existing processing relationship intact while enabling you to benefit from our PCI compliant payment technology and a fully integrated payment solution.  Element can work with any major processor on the market today and without any required software to install or manage, getting started is easy.

To get started or find out more, click here or call 1-866-435-3636 x1721

Already an Element customer?  Click here to configure your Element account.

Payment Express (NZ/AU)

Payment Express is a Visa and MasterCard certified solution developed by DPS which facilitates electronic payments via internet, EFTPOS, billing, IVR, vending and mail/telephone order card acceptance channels. Payment Express (also known as DPS) has been developing and providing innovative and robust payment solutions for the Australian and New Zealand markets since 1997.

To get started or find out more, click here or call 1 800 006 254 (Australia) or 0800 PAYMENT (NZ)

Already an Payment Express customer? Click here to configure your Payment Express account 

What if my merchant provider is not yet supported?

We will over the coming months be internally releasing a limited number of additional merchant integration gateways, but with so many payment providers around the world, it wouldn't be prudent to try to build native integrations with every merchant provider.

However, we will be encouraging many more integrations by 3rd party developers via our payment platform has a public API. With a little, easy coding, it is possible for Vend customers to integrate our point of sale with just about any card processing service available. 

There are a number of ways customers can seek to integrate Vend to their preferred merchant provider, via our payments API.

1. Add or vote for a request for your preferred provider in our Merchant Integrations Requests forum for consideration by Vend or 3rd party providers
2. Commissioning a custom integration via a software developer to integrate their current merchant provider with Vend payments API
3. By requesting their current merchant provider write a 3rd party integration with Vend, through the Vend Payments API

Can I still use Vend without integrated card payments?