A payment gateway is the technology that takes a customer's card or wallet details at checkout, sends them securely to the card networks for approval and returns the result to your website in seconds. It works alongside a merchant account, which is where the acquiring bank holds the funds before settling them to your business account. Most modern payment partners bundle both, so you get one contract, one integration and one dashboard. Binderr sets you up with a regulated partner that provides the full setup for your industry.

The gateway moves the transaction data, the merchant account holds the money. When a customer pays, the gateway encrypts the details and routes the authorisation request, while the acquirer behind the merchant account takes on the risk of processing for you and settles the funds, usually within one to three business days. The acquirer is also the one that underwrites your business, which is why approval depends on your industry and chargeback risk rather than on the technology you choose.

With a complete application it is quick. The initial assessment takes about 5 minutes, preliminary approval usually comes back within a day, the remaining onboarding requirements take around 15 minutes to submit, and the gateway is typically provisioned within 3 days. Most businesses are live within a week. Higher-risk models and complex ownership structures can take a little longer because underwriting goes deeper, but incomplete documents and non-compliant websites cause far more delay than the sector itself.

Expect to provide your certificate of incorporation and articles, a company structure chart, passports and proof of address for directors and beneficial owners, recent business bank statements and, if you have them, processing statements from a previous provider. Regulated businesses also need a copy of their licence. Acquirers review your website before approval too: your legal name, contact details, full refund policy, terms and clear pricing with currency must all be visible. Binderr prepares the pack and checks your site against these rules before anything is submitted.

Pricing depends on your industry, your volumes and where your customers' cards are issued. Standard online businesses taking mostly European cards typically pay from around 1.2% to 2% per transaction plus a small fixed fee, with international and business cards costing more. Larger merchants often move to Interchange++ pricing, where you pay the actual card network costs plus a fixed markup. Some partners charge setup or monthly fees and others charge none. High risk merchants pay more and are usually asked for a rolling reserve. Your exact rates are agreed during onboarding, before you commit.

Yes. iGaming, adult, forex, nutraceuticals, travel, dating and subscription businesses are regularly declined by mainstream processors, but specialist acquirers are set up to take them. Expect deeper underwriting, a rolling reserve of around 5% to 10% of revenue held for a set period, and close monitoring of your chargeback ratio, which should stay below 1%. Binderr places high risk merchants with regulated partners that accept their sector and prepares the file to the standard those partners expect, which is what gets approvals through.

Our payment partners support EUR, GBP, USD, CAD and other major currencies, with Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay and a range of local payment methods through one integration. Offering the methods your customers already use matters: wallets now account for more than half of global ecommerce spend, and a missing payment method is a common reason shoppers abandon checkout. Multi-currency settlement lets you price locally and hold funds in the currencies you trade in.

Binderr starts by reviewing what you sell, where your customers are, your volumes and your risk profile. We then match you with a regulated payment partner that accepts your industry, so you are not applying to processors that will decline you. We prepare your KYC pack, check your website against card scheme rules, manage the submission and follow up with the partner until your gateway is live. If you also need a company or a business bank account, your KYC is prepared once and used across all of them.