Connecting your bank account to the COMS system

By design, payments collected through the COMS system are directly deposited in an account owned by the event organisers. This account can either be a merchant account or a standard account. A payment gateway that collects the payments and deposits them into the bank account also needs to be integrated into the payment solution.

The following details the options currently available. All require that an interface exists between COMS and the selected payment solution.

Option 1: Use of a standard account with Stripe

Stripe allows businesses, charities and other legal entities to collect credit card payments, as well as other types of online payments (e.g. Bancontact, Giropay, iDEAL, SEPA Debits, Sofort), without having to register and maintain a merchant account. Merchant accounts require a lengthy procedure, usually lasting weeks for approval and in most cases, incur maintenance costs. The Stripe payment solution allows you to save setup time as well as monthly fees.

In order to use the Stripe payment gateway, you need to open a Stripe account, provide information about your business and your bank account. Stripe takes a few days to check the information and authorise the account. Once your Stripe account is activated, you can easily create an interface between your account and the COMS system. As soon as this procedure is completed, you are ready to accept online payments. The funds collected on the Stripe account are automatically transferred to the account registered with Stripe after a few days.

Notes about this option

• Integrates with the COMS system out of the box
• Quick setup
• Good rates on cards purchased in Europe
• Available in 25 countries (as of 2017)

Option 2: Use of a standard account with PayPal

PayPal allows businesses and individuals to collect credit card payments, as well as other types of online payments, without having to register a merchant account. Instead, a PayPal business account must be used and an account must be registered with it. The funds collected on the PayPal account can be transferred at any time to the account registered with PayPal.

Notes about this option

• Integrates with the COMS system out of the box
• Quick setup
• Available in many countries

Option 3: Use of a Wirecard merchant account

Wirecard offers both a payment gateway and a merchant account, bundled together.

Notes about this option

• Integrates with the COMS system out of the box
• The merchant account is provided withtout charge (no setup or monthly fees)
• Only available in Europe

Option 4: Use of a merchant account with its associated payment gateway

COMS can integrate out of the box with a number of payment gateways, including:

• MiGS/Mastercard
• Mercanet
• Transfirst
• Nets/Netaxept
• Webaffaires
• CM-CIC
• Paybox
• Paygate

Notes about this option

• The payment gateway is linked to and depends on the merchant account
• Integrates with the COMS system out of the box

Option 5: Integrating with payment gateways

COMS can also integrate with other payment gateways. A charge applies for the work.