Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider solution that authorizes payments for e-businesses and online retailers.  It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways encrypt sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant. 

A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as a website or IVR service) and the Front End Processor or acquiring bank.  When a customer orders a product from a payment gateway enabled merchant, the payment gateway performs a variety of tasks to process the transaction.

Many payment gateways also provide tools to automatically screen orders for fraud.