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U.S.-based independent sales organizations are finding new merchants online through a payment gateway called Ezic, says Jim Mouzakiotis vice president of channel sales at Ezic Inc., an online payment gateway company, in an upcoming article in ISO&Agent magazine, a CardLine sister publication. Ezic's gateway service, which connects merchants to processors via a secure Internet connection, is sold only through resellers, such as ISOs. Mouzakiotis would not say how many U.S.-based ISOs have international merchants through Ezic or how many of these merchants ISOs have set up on Ezic's gateway. Besides generating new recurring revenue from transactions, one payoff for ISOs is that international merchants are more likely to tolerate higher markups on services than are U.S.-based merchants, Mouzakiotis says. The average markup for international merchants ranges between 25% and 30% more than for U.S. merchants, he says. Merchants pay for such services as invoice collection and invoice management available through the gateway. ISOs find merchant clients through a variety of methods, including direct-mail and e-mail marketing campaigns and networking at industry events. Mouzakiotis says. ISOs set up international merchants as they would with U.S.-based merchants, and those accounts face the same sort of review process to determine transaction rates. However, Ezic must have a relationship with a bank in the merchant's home country. Last September, Ezic signed a deal with Payvision, a Netherlands-based payment processor, enabling Ezic's resellers to sell to international businesses. "That opened the door to international processing," Mouzakiotis says. Currently, Ezic's resellers have merchants in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Israel, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea, the Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore and Panama.
