Payment Methods: How They Impact Your Business Model
The ability to take online payments for the goods & services that you sell is one of the ever-growing important issues that businesses around the world implement. It is as simple as that: if customers cannot pay for the merchandise a company sells using a preferred payment method, how will it earn money?
The necessity of payment methods for online business
Given that over 10% of purchase transactions around the world were made online in 2022, if a company can’t provide the necessary payment method for such customers, it easily loses exactly that percentage of sales by number and by volume.
Depending on a specific country, that share varies widely. In the US, it is around 14%. In the UK, it is nearly 30%. Do you really want to lose that because you do not introduce the desirable online payment methods? Or, at least, the most popular ones: cards, e-wallets & direct debit.
Which online payment method is best? & how many of them there are?
Depending on the country of our reader, the list of payment methods that we provide below may significantly differ. Today, there exist over 200 payment methods across the world. In some countries, only a handful might be actually popular or legislatively approved. Sometimes, people refer to them as the ‘payment channels’ or ‘means of payment’.
After having analyzed all the methods of payment, we have come to the conclusion that there are 9 general types of them in the world today. Each has a multitude of specific payment options within a method. But which one is truly the best? That’s up to you to answer based on what people in the given country prefer: cards, online money, transfers, direct debits…
The list of payment methods includes such ones (and we’ve tried to embrace all possible options so you can consider, which one of them is applicable for a website or a mobile app):
- Bank (a.k.a. wire) transfer: direct bank transfer, Interac, Sofort, InstaDebit, Giropay, iDebit, Klarna, Euteller, Boleto Bancario, Poli, iDeal, SwiffyEFT, Przelewy24, Ecobanq, Brite, Entercash, Help2Pay, Instant EFT, Quick Pay, UseMyBank & Inpay.
- Bank checks. These payment methods are popular in some countries, where the banking system and/or the communication system across the country are not perfect. But the USA is also one of the countries where checks are still popular despite the fact that it seems like a country-leader in innovations. Online, checks are used rarely indeed. Yet, still, we’ve seen websites
,which support them, especially online casinos, so we just can’t ignore this method.
- Credit & debit cards. Although many experts online refer to them as two separate types of payment methods, there is absolutely no technical or procedural difference between them. It’s just the first type has a credit limit tied to it, while the second does not. Here they are: MasterCard, Visa, Maestro, AmEx, Diners Club, JCB, Solo, Rupay, Discover, Wirecard, UnionPay, Laser & Dankort. Actually, the number of cards may be fuller if some other cards are issued in this or that jurisdiction.
- Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Tether, Dogecoin, Cardano, USD Coin, Monero, Polkadot, EOS, or MoonPay. We’ve limited ourselves to just several most popular cryptocurrency payment methods but there are
existover 1,000 of them — no need to list them all.
- E-wallets: Bancontact, BPAY, Citadel, ClickandBuy, Dotpay, ecoPayz, EntroPay, EPay, EPS, eZeeWallet, iWallet, Jeton, KoalaPays, MiFinity, Neteller, PayPal, Paytm, Piastrix, QuickTender, Skrill Moneybookers, Trustly, uPayCard, QIWI & WebMoney. If you know other e-wallets, which should be on this list, tell us in the comments.
- Mobile methods of payment: MuchBetter, Zimpler, Apple Pay, Siru Mobile, Boku, Siirto, Zelle, Swish & operations via SMS.
- Money transfer systems: 1st Contact Forex, AFEX, Boss Revolution, Boxypay, Bridge21, Cash App, Chase, Currencies Direct, Currency Solutions, CurrencyFair, CurrencyTransfer, DolEx, Dunbridge Financial, Exchange4Free, FairFX, Halo Financial, ING Direct, Instarem, La Nacional, Money2India, Moneycorp, MoneyGram, OFX, OrbitRemit, Pangea, Paymentearth, Payoneer, Paysend, Paysera, Payza, PingPong Global Payments, Placid Express, PNC Bank, Remit2India, Remitly, RemitMoney, Ria, Sendwave, Sharemoney, Sigue, Skrill, Small World, TorFX, Transfast, TransferGo, TransferMate Global Payments, Travelex, UAE Exchange, Unimoni, Usend, Veem Global Business Payments, Venmo, Venstar Exchange, Viamericas, Vigo Money Transfer, Walmart2World, WeChat, Western Union, WireBarley, Wise, WorldFirst, WorldRemit, Wyre, XE Money Transfer, Xendpay, Xoom, Xpress Money & Zelle. That’s the largest paragraph in the payment methods here.
- Prepaid cards, gift cards & vouchers: Paysafecard, Neosurf, AstroPay Card, Flexepin, CashtoCode, Postepay, EcoVoucher, CASHlib, Revolut, Vanilla Prepaid, Ukash, Players Rewards Card, MST Gift Card, Abaqoos & Paykasa payment methods.
- Other online payment methods: Venus Point, Google Pay, Money Order, Paytrail, Premier Pay, Hipay & Payr.
Conclusion on the types of payment methods
We hope that we have answered the question, ‘What are the payment methods?’ As our reader can see, there is a plethora of them. So simply not having several installed on a website, one would lose all those customers, who might be purchasing online.
Today, many good payment processors are ready to integrate their payment solutions to websites & mobile apps to start earning in online retail, supporting one or more mentioned methods. Some of those processors are PayPal, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, AmEx, Apple Pay, Stripe, Square, Visa Checkout & Masterpass.
