Payment processors — how to pick one, and how BazPay compares.
Payment processors move an authorisation from a merchant to the card networks, wallets or bank rails and back — then settle the funds. This page explains the shortlist a merchant should use to evaluate any processor, and shows where BazPay sits as a direct regional processor for e-commerce and subscription businesses.
Built for EU, UK and Commonwealth e-commerce sellers, subscription software firms and professional-services companies. No aggregated MID, no reseller middle layer, no blended reporting.
Why direct beats reseller for most merchants in the EU, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand
Four things stay true once your monthly volume is worth reconciling line by line. They are the reasons product, engineering and finance teams stay on a direct processor after the switching cost is paid.
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One processor, one contract
BazPay is the payment processor and the acquirer for its regional book. No reseller sitting between you and the network, no aggregated MID, no third party in the reporting chain.
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Transparent processor economics
Interchange, scheme fees and gateway margin appear on every settled transaction. Finance teams reconcile against the source, not against a blended rate on a processor's monthly summary.
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Coverage across rails
Cards, device wallets, local payment methods and SEPA Instant account-to-account rails run through the same processor with one signing secret and one webhook envelope.
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Regional underwriting, In-region data residency
Merchant underwriting on our own regional acquiring licence. Authentication and GDPR run natively — no offshore fallback, no cross-border data hop.
The four kinds of payment processors merchants meet
Most shortlist confusion comes from treating every processor as the same category. They are not. Below are the four structural types you will encounter, in the order they tend to appear during a procurement conversation.
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Direct
Direct payment processor
One entity holds acquiring membership with the networks, runs the processing platform and settles the merchant. BazPay is a direct processor of this type for the regional book. The advantage is transparency and clean attribution — the trade-off is that direct processors are choosier about who they underwrite.
- Named MID
- Interchange++
- Direct settlement
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Reseller
Aggregated / third-party PSP
A reseller sits on top of a downstream acquirer. Boarding is fast but you get a shared MID, blended reporting and delayed settlement. Third-party payment processors are common for merchants who need to go live in hours, not days.
- Shared MID
- Blended rate
- Aggregated payout
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Gateway-only
Gateway processor
Some processors provide the software layer only, forwarding authorisation traffic to an acquiring bank you contract separately. Useful when you already hold an acquiring relationship; adds a hop for every transaction.
- Software only
- Bring-your-own-MID
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Full-stack
Full-stack processor
A single provider that ships acceptance, billing, fraud, payouts and reporting behind one API. Higher engineering leverage for teams that would rather integrate once than stitch four vendors together.
- One API
- One dashboard
- One event catalogue
BazPay operates as a direct + full-stack processor for merchants in the EU, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — see merchant acquiring for the licence side and network payment gateway for the software side. Related cluster pages: gateway services, payment services and transaction processing.
A shortlist of seven criteria for evaluating website payment processors
No processors list is going to survive a real procurement pass. What survives is a set of criteria you apply to every candidate. Below is the shortlist BazPay uses in customer evaluations, with our own answer on each row.
| Criterion | BazPay | Typical reseller / aggregator |
|---|---|---|
| Direct vs reseller | Direct regional acquirer, named MID | Reseller on aggregated MID |
| PCI scope | Merchant SAQ A (hosted fields, vault) | Full merchant PCI where PAN passes your servers |
| 3-D Secure 2 | 3-D Secure 2.2 with exemption logic | Blanket 3DS or none |
| Reporting | Interchange++ per transaction | Blended-rate summary |
| Webhook contract | Signed HMAC, replay-protected, idempotent | Unsigned or per-vendor formats |
| Settlement | Per-scheme cycle to your local settlement account | Aggregated payout, common delay |
| Underwriting scope | Merchants across the EU, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand (explicit list) | Broad, few exclusions |
Rate structure on the pricing page. Plugin coverage on integrations. Boarding path on merchant acquiring. Engineering-foundation view on payment infrastructure; vertical fits on fintech payment solutions and the payment gateway for digital goods. New to the category? Start with accept online payments and the integrated payment solutions build motion.
How a payment processor handles one charge
Six stages sit between the checkout button and the settled dollar on your bank account. Each stage is visible in the dashboard and each stage change fires a signed webhook.
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Signals
Hosted fields and the checkout script gather device and session signals before any network hop.
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Score
The inline fraud engine grades each order against your rule set. Clean orders skip the extra step.
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Authenticate
3-D Secure 2.2 runs only when the risk earns it; PSD2 exemption logic claims the rest.
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Authorise
The processor posts to the acquirer with the authentication result bound to the transaction for issuer scoring.
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Capture
Capture at once or later. Partial captures and partial refunds both post cleanly on the same charge.
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Settle
Funds reconcile per scheme cycle and land in your local settlement account with interchange++ line detail on every row.
Processor features that matter after the demo
Every capability below ships on the standard integration. Turn features on with a request flag or a dashboard toggle — no enterprise-tier gate on the primitives.
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REST API
One endpoint creates a charge across cards, wallets, APMs and SEPA Instant — the response object shape does not change.
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Hosted fields
Card, expiry and CVC inputs served from our PCI environment inside your checkout, so raw PAN never touches your stack.
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Gateway-side vault
Store credentials once and re-use them across renewals, upgrades and one-clicks — portable if you ever change stack.
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Network tokens
Visa and Mastercard network tokens refresh automatically when a card is reissued; card-on-file charges keep working.
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3-D Secure 2.2 engine
Frictionless flow first; PSD2 exemption logic claims TRA, low-value, trusted-beneficiary and MIT where permitted.
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Idempotent requests
Retry-safe create requests keyed to your idempotency header. A network blip never becomes a double charge.
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Signed webhooks
HMAC-signed, replay-protected events for every state change across every rail — one signature scheme end to end.
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Interchange++ reporting
Every settled transaction breaks out interchange, scheme fees and processor margin for line-level reconciliation.
One REST call per transaction, whichever processor you switch from
The charge object is the unit of work. Migrating from another processor means changing the endpoint, moving the vault under a scheme-approved token migration and pointing your webhook handler at our signed events. The request shape is compact and stable.
POST /v1/charges
Idempotency-Key: 8f1c-2b3a-9e4d
{
"amount": 4990,
"currency": "EUR",
"payment_method": "card",
"capture": "auto",
"three_d_secure": "required_if_needed",
"descriptor": "ACME EU LTD",
"metadata": { "order_id": "ORD-10842" }
}The response returns a canonical charge object with the authorisation code, the interchange bucket and any exemption applied. The complete schema lives in the API reference, with handler samples in the developer docs.
Who BazPay underwrites as a regional payment processor
BazPay is a regional processor. Underwriting is scoped to four merchant profiles with predictable chargeback ratios and clean AML posture. If your model fits, boarding takes days.
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E-commerce sellers
DTC brands and multi-country storefronts running Shopware, Magento 2, WooCommerce or PrestaShop. One processor across every regional storefront.
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Subscription software
SaaS teams billing monthly and annual plans with saved-card renewals, MIT exemptions and dunning-aware retries.
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Professional services
Agencies, consultancies and B2B service firms invoicing recurring retainers with named-payer trust lists and enforced 3-D Secure 2.
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Digital publishers
Membership renewals, single-issue purchases and paywall unlocks reconciled per SKU on one MID.
Out of scope for BazPay: adult, gambling, cannabis, CBD, nutraceutical, forex, CFD, crypto-exchange, debt-collection and MLM. BazPay is not a merchant of record and not a marketplace of third-party PSPs. Method-specific and rail-specific detail: iDEAL payments and Single Euro Payments Area processing. The role split between acquirer and issuer sits on issuing and acquiring.
Security and compliance signals to expect from any processor
The floor for a credible online payment processor is PCI DSS Level 1 on its own environment, authentication with 3-D Secure 2 and named scheme registrations. Anything below that floor is a red flag on your shortlist. BazPay's signals are below for reference.
- PCI DSS Level 1
- Annual assessment on the acquiring and gateway environment
- Merchant SAQ A
- Hosted fields and gateway vault keep card data out of your stack
- Authentication
- 3-D Secure 2.2 with automatic exemption logic on every card charge
- GDPR
- In-region data residency; DPA on request
- SEPA / SEPA Instant
- Direct participation for merchant payouts in supported corridors
- Scheme registrations
- Visa VIRP and Mastercard SPoC/PCI-CP where required
Questions merchants ask about payment processors
What do payment processors actually do?
Payment processors move an authorisation request from a merchant to the relevant network (card scheme, wallet, local payment method or bank rail), read the issuer's response, and post the resulting settlement into a merchant balance. A direct processor is also the acquirer; a third-party processor sits on top of one. BazPay is a direct regional payment processor with a defined acceptance list.
Is there a definitive payment processors list or list of third-party payment processors?
There is no single authoritative payment processors list — the market changes every quarter as licences move, resellers get acquired and networks add new members. When evaluating any processor, ask three questions: is the entity a direct acquirer or a reseller, what MID structure will you sit on, and does reporting arrive at interchange++ line detail or as a blended summary? Those three answers separate the credible processors from the aggregated middle layer.
Are there free payment processors or a free payment system I can use?
No credible payment processor is free. Card acceptance always carries interchange, scheme fees and a processor margin — a service that advertises "free processing" either passes the cost to the shopper as a surcharge or blends it into a higher headline rate elsewhere. BazPay publishes an interchange++ rate card so every component is visible; that is the transparent alternative to a headline "free" claim.
How does BazPay compare with other merchant payment processors?
BazPay differs from most merchant payment processors on three axes: it is a direct acquirer (not a reseller), it bundles acceptance, recurring billing, fraud and payouts on one platform (not four vendors), and it publishes rates on interchange++ (not as a blended blended fee). The trade-off is scope — BazPay underwrites merchants in the EU, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand only, so it is not a fit for every business type.
Do you serve cannabis payment processors' use cases, or medical payment solutions?
No. BazPay does not board cannabis, CBD or nutraceutical merchants, and it is not a health care payment system for clinical or PHI-bearing workflows. The medical adjacency BazPay does cover is the non-clinical side — private clinics, therapists and healthcare software billing consultations, memberships or subscriptions — where no protected health information is stored on the payment side. Merchants that require specialist or PHI-scoped medical payment systems should look elsewhere.
Can BazPay work as one of the payment processors for nonprofits?
Yes, when the nonprofit's model fits regional underwriting: recurring donations, membership subscriptions, event-ticket sales and online shop revenue. Card-on-file, dunning-aware retries and Gift-Aid-style metadata on charges are all supported. BazPay does not board donation platforms that aggregate funds for third-party charities or MOR-style flows.
Which website payment processors integrate directly with common regional storefronts?
BazPay ships maintained plugins for WooCommerce (WordPress), Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce, PrestaShop and Shopware 6. Each plugin covers checkout, refunds, capture, webhooks and recurring billing out of the box, so a website goes live in days rather than weeks.
How do gateway processors differ from acquirers?
Gateway processors provide the software layer that moves authorisation messages between a merchant and an acquirer. An acquirer holds the licence with the card schemes and settles the merchant. BazPay is both — one platform runs the gateway and settles from its own regional acquiring balance, so there is no external gateway hop between you and the network.
Are bill payment processors and recurring billing supported?
Yes. Card-on-file, network-tokenised renewals, MIT exemptions and dunning-aware retries are native to the platform. Merchants running utility-style or invoice-based billing use the same charge object as one-off e-commerce checkouts — the payment_method and schedule fields differ, everything else stays the same.
Add BazPay to your processor shortlist
Share your business model, volumes and existing processor and we will confirm boarding fit and likely rate structure within one working day. Sandbox keys are available so integration work starts in parallel — see card and APM processing, payment fraud prevention, recurring billing and payouts.