Online security and safety are essential to building a business and maintaining lasting relationships with customers. That is why a secure, efficient payment gateway is so important to any online business.

A payment gateway secures credit card and other personal customer information using SSL, or Secure Socket Lock, technology ensuring a secure online experience.

Breakdown of How a Payment Gateway Works:

• A customer places their order and then the transaction is forwarded to the payment gateway. This payment gateway is owned and maintained by the company receiving the order.
• Once the payment gateway has secured the transaction the transaction information is forwarded to a bank of the receiving company’s choosing.
• Once the bank receives this transaction information credit card information is necessary. The bank must authenticate the credit card information and request that the card issuer either declines or approves payment based on the customer’s credit eligibility.
• The credit card issuer responds and either approves or declines payment and forwards this information to the bank, the bank in turn forwards this information back to the payment gateway.
• All of this takes place seemingly instantaneously with a few spins of a loading browser.
• After this process is complete the transaction is finalised and funds are authorised with the merchant’s final processes. Once all information is confirmed and the various site credentials are validated the money is deposited into the merchants account.

Keep in mind that all of this happens rather quickly and behind the scenes, but it is an important aspect of online business. Transaction security, especially in a digital environment, is of the utmost importance among the always present threat of identity theft.

A payment gateway is essentially a buffer which decreases the chances of errors during the online transaction process. With online commerce there is no one individual that processes payments, receives funds, or acts with any sort of discretion, which is why payment gateways are a necessity.

While you may think all payment gateways are essentially the same, you may wish to more closely examine your options, particularly for your customers’ peace of mind as well as for your continued business success.