How to Choose and Integrate Payment Gateway: Online Payments, Transaction Processing, and Payment Gateways Providers
Be it an e-commerce site, e-learning, gaming or merely one meant for bookings, having a well-integrated secure payment gateway is a must. As the website owner, you need to ensure that your customers are safe at all times while using your site and that you can provide them with an easy-to-use payment system. According to recent stats, over 20% o users will abandon your site if your checkout process is too long and complicated, and an equal number will leave with their products still in the cart if they don’t find your payment gateways secure. That’s why it’s vital that the software development company in India you choose to integrate said payment gateways knows how to satisfy your business’s needs along with your customer’s requirements.
What is a Payment Gateway?
According to Wikipedia, A payment gateway is the merchant service provided by e-commerce application service providers to authorize digital payment processing (credit or debit card, net banking, UPI, etc.) for businesses. Usually, secure payment gateways are provided by banks to their customers, but these can also be provided as a separate service by financial service providers.
In simple terms, it’s a digital version of the real point sales terminals that you see in physical stores, although, nowadays, even brick and mortar stores facilitate users with digital modes of payment. To ensure the complete safety of users, all standard payment gateways encrypt users’ data and sensitive information so that hackers can’t access it through any means.
The Process of a Secure Payment Gateway Integration
There are three main ways your Mobile application development company can integrate an online payment gateway into your website. These might differ from one business to another depending upon the level of compliance with financial regulations and the degree of user experience with regards to payment and checkout procedures. The three methods are:
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Hosted Gateways
A hosted gateway is a third-party application that redirects users to another site for processing and completion of payments, and the user is redirected back to your website as soon as the payment has been made. Some common examples of hosted payment gateways include amazon pay, Paypal, SagePay and Stripe. The perk of using this type of payment gateway is that the service provider takes hold of all payment processing. Although, on the downside, site owners lack control over how the gateway functions. Also, when a user is redirected to another site, it may lead to lower conversion rates.
The integration process for hosted payment gateways
Generally, the vendor’s websites provide a detailed integration guide for hosted gateways, where the connection is processed through API’s. Your reputed app development company will have detailed knowledge and experience in integrating the different payment gateways through coding.
This method is considered the best for small enterprises that are comfortable with processing all payments externally.
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Non-Hosted or Integrated Payment Gateways
Contrary to hosted payment gateways, these are directly incorporated into your website to ensure quick and smooth payment processing for your customers. Businesses opting for integrated payment gateways need to obtain PCI DSS compliance, confirming that they are responsible for securing, storing, and conducting a thorough initial verification for every transaction. Your developer will install the preferred payment gateway available on the merchant’s site. Some common examples of integrated gateways include Brain Tree, Pay U, First Data, Mango Pay, Authorize.net, etc.
Sometimes, businesses may also use a white-label gateway, ideally a prebuilt payment gateway, easily customizable to suit your individual business requirements. It can also be branded as your own. A major perk here is that integrated payment gateways can be used as a reliable means of revenue since it allows your business to process payments for your website and extend the services to other enterprises for a fee. Other perks include complete control over all transactions on your website, easy customization of payment systems, and using it as a branded technology in the case of white-label solutions.
On the flip side, having your own integrated payment gateway can cause a significant technological burden, making this method suitable for medium to large enterprises. Other than these, the procedure to avail PCI compliance is quite tedious, and businesses might need to incur high expenses in the initial stages of setting up.
Integration Process for Non-Hosted Payment Gateways
A vast majority of non-hosted payment gateways come with readily available integration modules and extensive APIs. You’ll require a professional full stack developer who is well versed in integrating these from your chosen merchant. To build a customized gateway, you need to follow the steps below:
- Make a contract with banks to act as payment processors for you.
- Develop an API for your Payment gateway and document it as per PCI DSS guidelines.
- Make sure to provide a tokenization solution in our gateway
- Get a PCI DSS compliance certification by incorporating necessary security measures and integrating merchant fraud protection mechanisms on the website.
- Develop an admin panel so that your staff can control merchant operations.
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Direct Post Method
It combines some features of hosted gateways with those of non-hosted gateways. Under the direct post-integration method, your customers won’t be redirected to another site to complete their payments, nor will you require PCI compliance. The transaction data is usually posted to the payment gateway after the customer clicks on the purchase button and goes directly to the processor and gateway without the need to be stored on your server.
A major perk is that it provides all the benefits of non-hosted payment gateways without the hassle of PCI compliance, but on the other side, it lags in terms of security, and hence it’s usually not recommended.
Summing Up
Choosing the right payment gateway provider and getting it integrated by a professional software development company is a must for the smooth inflow of buyers and the overall functioning of your business. While implementing any gateway, make sure it meets your business’s needs and provides your users with an enhanced user experience without compromising on their security.
