A payment gateway is a service that can be used to process credit card transactions when accepting online orders from your customers. Payment gateways are provided by banks and other dedicated Payment Processors, and you are required to establish an account with a Payment Processor before you can use their services. The requirements for an account vary from service to service, with specific requirements described on the web sites of most gateway providers.
Payment Gateway Service Providers
Payment gateway service providers are companies that provide the payment processing servers and associated merchant credit accounts used to accept credit card transactions and other forms of payments over the Internet. The service provider may be a bank or other company associated with the major credit card vendors. Payment Processors offer a variety of specific services associated with e-commerce transactions and charge rates and fees for providing such services.
Generally, there is a fixed monthly fee and/or per-transaction fee that you must pay the gateway provider for transactions performed on your account. You may also be required to put down a deposit on your account and there may be other financial or legal obligations you must meet prior to activating your account.
In a typical electronic transaction scenario, the Payment Processor's web site will handle the actual payment transaction with the online consumer, and the Processor's back-end system will manage the collection process with the credit card vendor. In short, the Processor will collect the payments from your customers, deduct any fees, and transfer the remaining funds to your bank account. The actual rates and features depend on the service level provided for by the Payment Processor.
Since there are many Payment Processors operating on the Internet today, we cannot recommend any specific vendors. Our programmers have successfully integrated customer sites into gateways at:
JCC (www.jcc.com.cy )
PayPal (www.paypal.com )
2Checkout (www.2co.com)
E-Clear (www.eclear.net )
The choice of Payment Processor is affected by many variables, we recommend you investigate a few providers before you submit an application to any particular gateway service.
