Fazley Rabbi"Customers want to pay online, so right now we ask them to send money to our bKash number and share a screenshot. It is a mess." It is also risky: screenshots can be edited, payments get matched to the wrong order, and someone has to check each one by hand. The proper way is to take payments on your website through a payment gateway, so the customer pays at checkout and your site receives a confirmed result.
Your options
- A payment gateway or aggregator. One checkout that offers several methods, typically cards, mobile financial services such as bKash and Nagad, and internet banking. You sign one agreement and integrate once.
- Direct merchant integration with bKash or Nagad. Both offer payment services for businesses. Whether a direct website integration is available to you depends on your business type and their current approval process, so ask them directly.
Whichever route you take, work only with a provider that is properly licensed to operate in Bangladesh, and ask to see the relevant approval if you are unsure. Keep cash on delivery as an option too; many customers still prefer it.
What to prepare
Gateways review your business and your website before approving you. Requirements vary by provider, so check their current list, but expect to need:
- Business documents such as a trade licence, and a bank account in the business name.
- Identification for the owner.
- A live website with real products or services and clear prices.
- Visible policies: terms and conditions, refund and return policy, privacy policy and delivery information.
- Contact details, including a physical address, phone number and email.
Getting the website and policies ready first usually makes approval smoother.
Comparing providers
Ask each provider, in writing:
- Which payment methods their checkout supports.
- Their fees for each method, and any setup or annual charges.
- How long settlement takes, and to which account.
- Whether they offer a plugin for your platform, such as WooCommerce, or an API for a custom site.
- Whether they provide a sandbox for testing.
- How refunds work, and what support you get when something goes wrong.
Integration steps
- Install the plugin or connect the API using the provider's official documentation and sandbox credentials.
- Verify every payment on the server. Before marking an order paid, your site should confirm the payment with the gateway through its server-side check or notification. Never rely only on the customer landing on a "success" page.
- Test every path in the sandbox: successful, failed and cancelled payments, a customer closing the browser mid-payment, a double click, and a refund.
- Make checkout work on mobile data. Keep it short, and make sure a slow connection does not create duplicate orders.
- Go live carefully. Make a small real payment yourself, check that it reaches your account, then refund it.
- Reconcile settlements against orders regularly.
Mistakes and risks
- Storing card details yourself. Never do this. The gateway handles card data; your site should only receive the result.
- Marking orders paid from the redirect alone. This is how fake or failed payments slip through.
- Hiding the refund policy. It frustrates customers and leads to more disputes.
- Sharing gateway credentials over chat or leaving them in public code. Store them securely and limit who has access.
Who does what
You handle the business documents, provider choice, fee negotiation and policies. A developer handles the integration, server-side verification, testing, security, and how payment status flows into your orders and reports. That is part of my software and website development service. Once payments are flowing, matching them against orders is the next thing to get right.
Smallest first step
Check that your website has a clear refund policy, terms, a privacy policy and full contact details, and gather your trade licence and business bank account information. Then contact two or three providers with the questions above. If you want help reviewing their answers or with the integration, get in touch.