What is a payment gateway?
- I have been told that I need a payment gateway for my e-commerce site. What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is best explained as a virtual terminal. Just like when you go to a grocery store and you swipe your credit card, the terminal sends the purchase amount and your credit card to a central network to either approve or deny the charge. On an e-commerce site this is all done virtually. A customer enters their credit card number on your website and the information is sent behind the scenes to the payment gateway to either approve or deny the charge. If the charge is approved, the payment gateway takes care of settling the charges with your merchant account so that you actually receive the charged amount in your business checking account. If you need more help we have some additional help in our Guide to Accepting Credit Cards on the Internet.
- April 13, 2009