A Payment Gateway provides credit card processing, billing, reporting and settlement and operational services to acquiring and issuing banks, manages the process of transferring authorized and captured credit card funds between different financial accounts such as the merchants company checking account. These corporations typically charge merchants a discount rate and a transaction fee for this service. These fees vary from processor to processor.
With e-commerce and on-line shopping increasing at extraordinary rates, it is essential that your websites be integrated via payment gateway. A payment gateway can be thought of as a digital equivalent to a credit card processing terminal. Although there are many payment gateways available, some of the most popular include Authorize Net, Verisign etc.
Advantages of Payment gateway include
- Gateways provide significant benefits if you have more than a few orders per day
- Credit card validation in real time
- Helps the business to go on-line & be available to users worldwide 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
- Money is normally deposited into your bank account automatically.
- Reports and refunds normally allowed via browser by gateway company