Yes, you still need a merchant acct and bank acct. In order for a customer's CC info to get to the mercant processor securely, you either use a physical terminal to swipe the card (this is done in-store, at a booth, or any other physical location) OR use a payment gateway for online/e-commerce transactions. Your merchant acct providor can usually also provide a payment gateway service or you can use a third party service. I would not engage in any sort of manual entry of credit card info for online sales as this gets you into the PCI compliance issues. These are security rules set by Visa, Master Card, etc. on how CC data is to be securely/safely handled and protected. They are a huge pain in the *** and they are always changing because fraud has become such an issue. Unless you are taking expensive measures to encrypt and physically protect customer credit card data, it is safer and cheaper to leave that to the payment gateway service. That is part of what you are paying them for. You do not want to store any CC info on your computer or other equipment. In theory, MC, Visa, etc. could audit you and when they find you don't comply to PCI standards they will ban you from accepting credit cards.