How to setup an online payment system?

[syntrax]

How do they work or how to set them up? I know how to program in PHP, but I'm trying to help somebody set up an Online payment system, one where he can use his own thing, without paypal. I know is possible, but I have never even thought about how to set them up.

 

So far what I have figured out (which is obvious), the bank account, how do you send money to from the C.C. to the bank account? I know this might be confusing, but any push in the right direction will be a big help.

 

ps.

What's a good book?

[Andy-H]

ps.

What's a good book?

 

Who dares wins, by Chris Ryan.

[codebyren]

Generally you would need to connect to a payment gateway which has connectivity to several banks - I don't think there are many (if any) banks that have an API that you could connect directly to to process payments etc. (I expect they deliberately only connect to gateways that meet pretty crazy security requirements)

 

That being said, it looks like things are starting to open up in this field: http://www.mastercard.com/us/company/en/newsroom/mc_launching_new_open_api_developer_portal.html

 

But for the moment, you would most likely need a set of API credentials from a payment gateway linked to a merchant account (from a bank) in order to process transactions.  It can be pretty expensive when compared to something like PayPal if you are only doing a few transactions - but the more you process, the more cost effective the payment gateway option gets.

 

A good place to start would be to google "payment gateway" or check wikipedia.