Payment Gateways: Everything You Need to Know
Blog - Prof. Amandeep Singh
Lyallpur khalsa college, Kapurthala
What is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider's merchant service that authorizes
credit card or direct payment processing for e-businesses, online sellers, bricks and clicks, or traditional
brick-and-shops.
Why is a payment gateway required?
Any business that wants to accept online and credit card payments needs a payment gateway. It
encrypts sensitive credit card information and ensures that it is securely transmitted from the customer
to the acquiring bank. The payment gateway acts as a bridge between your customer and the merchant,
ensuring that the transaction is completed safely and quickly. The technology sends financial data to the
appropriate parties to authorize payments and transfer funds from a customer to a merchant.
The payment gateway that you choose imparts trust in the minds of your customers as they make the
purchase, hence it becomes the responsibility of a merchant to select the payment gateway such that it
is safe and secure.
How does it work?
These key stakeholders are included in payment gateways:
Merchant - The business
Customer - the person making the purchase.
Issuing Bank - The customer's account is held by this financial institution.
Card Schemes - The Credit Card Company viz. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc.
Acquiring - The merchant's account is held by this financial institution.
Steps:-
The cardholder initiates the purchase and pays by clicking on the “Pay Now” button on the
merchant’s website.
The payment gateway comes into action and checks with the issuing bank if funds are available
and make sure that the transaction amount doesn’t exceed the credit card limit or account
balance.
The payment gateway after verification sends encrypted credentials to the card schemes to
process.
The card scheme approves and sends information back to the merchant's website to complete
the transaction.
The payment gateway then sends the information to the acquiring bank to move money from
the issuing bank which is where the customer holds his account to the merchant’s account.
The customer will receive an order confirmation message once this process is completed.
Although these are several steps, in reality, it takes place within seconds. Radiant Pay provides
payment gateway solutions in UK for businesses to accept payment seamlessly.
Types of Payment Gateways
Redirected - The payment gateway simply redirects the customer to a payment processor such as PayPal
or Stripe to complete the transaction.
Hosted - Aka off-site payment. When a customer purchases something on your website or in your store,
the payment information is sent to the payment provider's servers for processing.
Self-hosted - Your servers handle the entire transaction. Aka on-sit payment.
How Important is a Payment Gateway in eCommerce?
A payment gateway is useful for more than just transferring money. A Payment Gateway can help a
merchant provide a better user experience. A payment gateway focuses on establishing a secure
connection between a customer and a merchant to facilitate payments. Both parties from the banks
involved must authenticate themselves.
PCI-DSS - Because of PCI-DSS compliance, user can store their data in the portal or gateway for recurring
payments. For example, if you order frequently from Amazon, the app or site will save your card or bank
account information for future use, and the payment gateway will keep it safe from any cyber-attacks
White-Label Wallet - You can make digital transactions through mobile wallet apps with some payment
gateways. Digital transactions via mobile wallet apps are possible with some payment gateways. You can
transfer money from your account balance to your mobile wallet app, which you can then use to make
purchases on other apps or websites.
Fraud Screening tools - To reduce the risk of losing information, many payment gateways offer fraud
screening tools. The Card Code Value (CCV), Card Verification Value (CVV), and even the Address
Verification Service are examples of these tools (AVS). These tools ensure that no transactions are
fraudulent.
The most significant benefit of a payment gateway is that it can be used by millions of people at the
same time, allowing you to buy and sell goods and services whenever you want.
What to Look for When Choosing a Payment Gateway
When merchants are looking for an appropriate and leading payment gateway, they must understand
why they are choosing the payment gateway and what services the payment gateway provider provides.
The success of your online business is frequently determined by your choice of a reasonable payment
gateway.
The factors that really should be considered before choosing an e-commerce payment gateway
provider, based on the business and functional requirements for the eCommerce business, are
enumerated below:
Hire an Expert
A payment gateway is a must when it comes to selling products and services online. It allows the
customers to make payments on their purchases and helps merchants to accept payments hassle-free.
To integrate it with the website, merchants should hire an expert to do the job.
Make customers feel safe
Even though you are a small-scale business, the customer expects a high-quality website with a secure
payment gateway. Before selecting one, the merchant should verify if it is according to the security
standards and is certified with the same.
Fees and services agreement requirement
Pricing for the payment gateways depends on various factors such as the type of transaction business
demands (online or in-person), number of transactions, sales, or even the market which it serves.
Make check out easy from all devices
After analyzing the record over years it can be concluded that the population uses mobile devices to
make purchases online, and this trend is going upwards. It is needed to evaluate the options and provide
a flexible checkout experience that caters to various mobile devices and network types.
Multiple options to choose from
The website’s efficiency is largely affected by the payment gateways, we have to make sure that the
chosen one supports all payment types, electronic invoicing, chargeback management, text and email
reminders to the customers, etc. Depending upon the business need the payment gateway comes to the
table with several features to offer. If a business has a global market that is if the products and services
are sold all over the world then the payment gateway must accept several credit and debit cards,
provide global solutions, and accept payment in different currencies
Merchant Account
When customers make an online payment through a payment gateway, the money is temporarily
transferred to a separate retailer account, which is called a merchant account. This is not the same as
having a bank account. It is essential to have a merchant account to accept payment online. Merchant
accounts provide an extra layer of security and funds management for both sellers and buyers, despite
the fact that they appear to be an extra task.
Mobile Payments
The is a rise in the use of digital mobile wallets, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, etc, and are being well
supported by payment gateways. Mobile payments might replace credit card payments in the coming
years. It is our responsibility to check that the payment gateway you select is optimized for mobile
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