The most common misunderstanding with a first online store: the owner thinks card payments are switched on with a plugin. The plugin is the last step. Before it come a bank, a contract and an approval.
Who is who
- CaSys — the processor handling card transactions for several local banks.
- cPay — the payment gateway your store sends payments through. It offers payment reports, card verification and Card on File, PayByLink links and risk handling with black/white lists.
- Your bank — it approves the merchant account and receives the money. Some local banks work through cPay/CaSys; NLB has its own solution.
The whole path, in order
- 1. A registered company. No card payments for a private individual.
- 2. Choose a bank that works with CaSys — ideally where you already bank.
- 3. Application and contract. The bank asks for company documents and reviews the site: what you sell, terms, returns policy, contact details, prices with VAT. This is where things usually stall.
- 4. Approval and integration credentials — first for a test environment.
- 5. Integration — via API or a WooCommerce module. We have our own module for cPay/CaSys, as well as for Halk Bank and NLB Pay — so you are not buying a third-party plugin or depending on someone else when the bank changes something.
- 6. Test transactions → then switching to live credentials.
The bank steps are the slow part — count in weeks, not days. So start the process while the site is being built.
What banks look for on the site
- Clear company details · terms and returns policy · prices with VAT and delivery costs · product descriptions and delivery times · SSL everywhere
Technical traps
- The plugin needs something from the server — on unsuitable hosting it fails silently at payment.
- Test vs live credentials — everything works in test, nothing live, because the old credentials stayed.
- The return URL must be right — otherwise the client pays and the order never closes.
- Never store card data. That is the processor's job.
While you wait
You do not need approval to start selling: bank slip, cash on delivery or invoice work from day one.
Source for cPay features: cpay.com.mk (July 2026). Terms differ per bank — check with yours.