Q: What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is a service that links a website with a merchant account. It enables the real-time online processing of credit cards.

Q: How does Endeavour's Payment Gateway (EPG) process a payment?
EPG operation is designed to be as flexible and simple to operate as possible. A payment from a secure page, hosted either at Endeavour or another secure server is received by EPG. The Gateway checks the origin of the page and determines the appropriate merchant.

An Order Summary is displayed on the screen with all the payment details. This Order Summary shows the Company/Merchant Logo at the top. The user is then prompted to either Proceed With or Cancel the payment.

If the user chooses to proceed with the payment a message is displayed telling the user that a confirmation of the payment will be received via email. At this point the user is finished with the payment process. The user does not have to wait online for the Gateway to come back with a confirmation. This protects against network delays or Internet connection failures, which could otherwise disrupt the payment process.

All payment requests are queued up internally by the Gateway. In this fashion, the Gateway can deal with multiple concurrent requests without causing the user any inconvenience. Under normal operating conditions, a payment is processed within 15 seconds.

On receiving a payment request, EPG immediately initialises a Card Authorisation Procedure with the Bank. If the payment is accepted an email is sent automatically to the merchant with the Authorisation Code and all other details pertaining to the transaction. The merchant only receives an email from the Gateway if a payment is successfully authorised by the Bank. In this way, invalid payments are filtered out. The user will also get an email with details on the confirmation or rejection of his payment.

If the Gateway is handling large volumes of transactions, EPG will open multiple connections with the Bank to keep payment request queues small and process them more efficiently.

At no point are user card details disclosed to a merchant. Card details are handled automatically by EPG without human intervention and details are only disclosed to the Bank during the verification process. A user can have peace of mind when he sees Endeavour's Logo while making a payment, knowing his card details are protected from both third parties and possible disagreement with merchants.

The Gateway also has built in checks to protect against double submission of payments.

Q: How does the EPG system work with my website?
EPG is an integrated payment system: it contains both Gateway and merchant account, already integrated with one another. Your technical contact only needs to direct payment requests to a specific URL as provided by Endeavour. The rest of the process is fully automated.

Q: What is a repayment?
A repayment is the action in which EPG transfers the revenue generated by the merchant's website to the account specified by the merchant.

Q: When is the transaction processed?
The transaction is processed in real time. Once the payment is placed, EPG will confirm with the Bank whether the payment is valid and if it is, the relevant emails are sent out. The actual transfer of payment money into the merchant's bank account will take place when the transactions are batch-uploaded, typically at the end of every week.

Q: What happens if a customer's credit card is invalid?
The transaction will not go through. The customer will be informed that the transaction failed.

Q: Does a merchant receive an e-mail every time a customer purchases something on my website?
Yes, both the merchant and the client will receive an email for every successful transaction.

Q: What is a merchant account?
A merchant account is the authorisation to process credit cards granted by a financial institution. It usually includes the processing of the transactions, and the deposit of funds (repayment) to the merchant's bank account.

A Company accepting Card payments by any process through EPG is required to obtain a merchant number. Merchant numbers for EPG are issued by Bank of Valletta (BOV) in Malta. In getting this merchant number, the company enters into an agreement with the Bank, which regulates the use of Card Payments. This agreement is between the Company and the Bank and does not bind Endeavour in any way.

As part of the agreement between the Bank and the Merchant, the processing fee per transaction charged by the Bank will be established. In addition, the Merchant can choose to accept payment either by cheque or paid directly into a Bank account.
Besides a merchant number, the Bank will also issue a POS ID number. This allows a merchant to distinguish between payments from different operations going to the same merchant.

The information required by Endeavour to set up a merchant is as follows:
1. Merchant ID
2. POS ID number
3. Email Address for payment notification
4. Logo for Company (typically 120x44 pixels)
5. Address of Company

Q: Does a merchant need to open a new bank account to use Endeavour's Payment Gateway?
No. This is only the case if the Merchant wants any payments processed by EPG to go directly into a BOV Bank Account and the Merchant does not hold such an account. If the Merchant wants to receive payment by cheque, then a new account with the Bank is not required.

Q: What are the conditions to be accepted for an EPG merchant account?
EPG opens merchant accounts for all legally existing companies, who exercise legal commercial activities, in all European countries, including Russia. The final decision, however, rests with the Bank.

Q: In which currencies can I accept payments?
The currencies accepted by EPG are US Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling and Maltese Liri.

Q: Which services are included in the EPG contract?
EPG services include:
1. The acquisition of a merchant account
2. The execution of your website's transactions
3. The Payment Gateway
4. The automatic repayments of your transactions on your website.
5. Hosting of Secure Pages on Endeavour's web servers

Q: How can the merchant's customers be secure when they give their credit card number on the Internet?
There is a standard for security in the Internet industry, called SSL. If SSL is installed on the server where your website is hosted, your customer's credit card information will be secure. EPG recommends that you ask your ISP for SSL. Endeavour also offer to host any pages containing confidential information on their secure web servers. Our servers have SSL installed and offer 128-bit encryption.

Q: Does a merchant need a vendor other than EPG for a payment system?
Because EPG is an integrated solution, which will plug into any website, it provides merchants with the banking authorization to accept credit cards, and also the Internet software to connect your website to the credit card network.

Q: How long does it take for my payment system to be up and running?
Once your website is ready to go, with the correct URLs set up on the payment pages, and a merchant account has been set up with the Bank, the payment system can be up and running in a matter of minutes!