What’s a payment gateway? How can you find the right one for your online business? Read this article and you’ll get a better understanding of payment gateways. Also, you’ll know how you can go for the right one for your online business.
What Is a Payment Gateway?
Payment Gateways can be described as software and servers designed to send payment transaction information to acquiring banks and responses from issuing banks. Basically, a payment gateway is a merchant service called to make the communication within banks easy.
In other words, a payment gateway is the service that authorizes credit card payments for online and offline businesses. Customers submit their credit card details, and then the payment gateway securely passes these details from the customer to the merchant and then between the merchant and the bank.
Payment gateways authorize fund transfers between buyers and sellers. Credit/debit cards, eCheck (ACH), and even cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are all processed through payment gateways.
To get a payment gateway for online business, you should turn to an eCommerce application service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payments processing for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar.
Customers can get a payment gateway form a bank. Gateways can also be provided by a specialized financial service provider as a separate service. This is the very payment service provider.
Only, it’s too important to turn to a reliable and experienced payment processor like eMerchantBroker.com for payment gateways. EMB is voted the #1 high risk credit card processing company in the US and boasts an A+ rating with the BBB. Moreover, EMB carries an A rating with Card Payment Options. eMerchantBroker.com talks to every single business owner so to provide him/her with the right merchant services he/she needs.
How Does a Payment Gateway Complete Transactions?
Payment transactions are finalized in the following way:
- The customer places an order from an online store and enters his/her payment information
- The encrypted data is sent to the merchant’s processor (the company that actually processes the transaction)
- The transaction gets routed by the processor to the credit card association
- The transaction is approved or denied
- The transaction gets authorization
- Funds become available in the after 24 – 48 hours
Things to Know When Applying for a Payment Gateway
Here’re 12 important things to know when applying for a payment gateway for your online business:
- Don’t confuse a payment gateway with a merchant account. Online payment processing requires both a payment gateway and a merchant account. When a customer pays for a product/service using his/her credit card, the funds get deposited into the merchant account and then are sent to the business bank account. The payment gateway simply declines or approves a transaction.
- Payment Service Providers (PSPs) serve as both a merchant account and the payment gateway. They help you, as a business owner, collect and manage your payments.
- There are various payment gateway options. For example, eMerchantBroker.com offers its own gateway, as well as others like 1st Pay, Authorize.net, eProcessing Network, and NMI.
- A merchant account and payment gateway are usually set up within some 3 – 4 weeks. However, with some payment gateway providers, you can sign up without a merchant account and get started right away.
- Make sure you’re aware of the provider’s fee structure. Pay attention to fully-loaded costs: set-up costs + transaction costs + admin costs.
- Payments are usually settled within a few days. Different providers have different payment timings.
- For international payments, find out if the gateway offers international and multi-currency payments or an interface with multiple languages.
- Make sure the gateway is secure. The provider should be level 1 compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and offers built-in security capabilities such as tokenization.
- Choose a payment gateway that provides support when you need it and in a way that’s suitable for you.
- If you deal with international payments, make sure the gateway supports local credit card types.
- For recurring payments, the gateway should store your clients’ credit card numbers and allow you to automatically charge them on a recurring basis.
- See whether the payment gateway can be integrated with the current billing, shopping cart, accounting solutions you’re using. In the best-case scenario, the gateway should integrate with software you already have.
A payment gateway is a must for eCommerce payment transactions. With a reputable payment processor, you’ll have no difficulty processing payments both for low risk and high risk businesses.