Online businesses have come back with a bang after the dot com bust of 2001. In 2006 total retail e-businesses was more than US$200 billion. The time is ripe for starting a web based business as payment processing has become real time banks and financial institutions stepping forward to help e-businesses. Receiving payments for online sales has become easy with merchant service providers and banks offering payment solutions for large, medium and small scale businesses. A small business can transact money through online payment processing companies such as Paypal, E-Gold or Google Checkout. Medium and large sized businesses can have online credit card payment facilities that will help them to receive payments faster. There are various merchant service providers who offer credit cards processing facility to online merchants. The Merchant service providers are registered with a bank and they help in processing a card transaction and crediting the money into the merchants account.

Google Checkout and Paypal also help merchants in receiving payments. They have their own transaction processing systems and the merchant can ask for a check or a bank wire transfer when a sale is made. If the customer uses Paypal for payment the money gets credited into the merchant’s Paypal account. There are risks that are associated with all online transactions and merchants may have to give chargebacks to the banks if there is any claim. It is always advisable to encourage customers to make payments through credit cards because that will help in quicker turnaround time.