i myself have no quames with the actual safety of using fully authenticated and SSL certifed third party providers. I believe that 1000s of etailers also use third party providers, eg worldpay, secpay, paypal and protx (who are a Sage owned company). But i do agree that processing payment on you own site does give more consistency and a more professional look with the customer. Something that i will eventually look into. I don't think it's just a case having a certificate, but i believe there are audits etc involved.

Many thanks!