I received an email this morning inquiring about payment gateways that support ACH payments. ACH payments is defined by the brains at Wikipedia as:

“Automated Clearing House (ACH) is an electronic network for financial transactions in the United States. ACH processes large volumes of credit and debit transactions in batches. ACH credit transfers include direct deposit payroll and vendor payments. ACH direct debit transfers include consumer payments on insurance premiums, mortgage loans, and other kinds of bills. Debit transfers also include new applications such as the Point-of-Purchase (POP) check conversion pilot program sponsored by NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association. Both the government and the commercial sectors use ACH payments. Businesses are also increasingly using ACH to collect from customers online, rather than accepting credit or debit cards.”

For me, a South African, this was the first time I had ever heard of an ACH payment. So it was with a great amount of zeal that I dived into googling the heck out of “what is an ACH payment”. In my frenzied acquisition of knowledge I came across Authorize.net who do indeed offer ACH payment processing. On a side note,  while I was exploring their site that I came across and read a bit about the Authorize.net affiliate reseller program. Now I’m a sucker for an affiliate program! When I hear ‘affiliate program’ I think ‘passive recurring income’. And when I think ‘passive recurring income’ I smell money. Now money makes the world go round. If the world stopped going round we would all fall off it and fly off into space. And that would be bad.

So it is with this decidedly altruistic point of view that I decided to sign up for Authorize.nets affiliate program… only to be thwarted in my planet saving endeavors by the fact that I am not currently based in the US. Their Affiliate Reseller Program is “currently only available to companies with a U.S. Tax ID or EIN, and a U.S. based bank account.” Boo.  So no passive recurring income for me from Authorize.net just yet, but I digress.

I’d like to invite  readers, payment gateway users or gateway developers and owners to let me know if their payment gateways support ACH payments. Suggest a few payment gateways that do support ACH payments and I can compile a list of systems, plus reviews, that everyone can use. I’d also very much like to compile cleared information on what ACH payments are, who can use them and for what. So if anyone has useful information, please drop me a mail.