What is a Payment Gateway?

One of the most important things that you must have in order to accept credit cards for your business is a payment gateway. A payment gateway is basically the same thing as a physical point of sale terminal in a retail store.

Payment gateways offer many different services, some of which include:

• Authenticate credit card or electronic check transactions over the Internet
• Send/receive transactions over the wire using the secure socket layer (usually128-bit encryption behind a firewall)
• Offers administrative support
• Promises complete privacy for all messages

Payment gateways link the virtual terminal ("buy" page) to the merchant account and the credit card organization securely. This protects the credit card data and any other personal information from being exposed to computer hackers.

One good thing about most payment gateways is that they offer a virtual terminal (input information screen). This is the software that allows the customer to input their credit card information.