A payment gateway is a piece of software, which makes international financial transactions possible. We’re looking at the available gateways on the market in this article, speaking of their potential suitability for international transactions.
Running a business, which requires clients to pay with their cards, e-wallets, e-money, or other means of payment, is a matter of many things, one of which is a connection to the payment gateway (PG).
There exist around a hundred PGs, which are used domestically and internationally. Let’s begin with the notion of what a PG is, why it is needed for financial transactions, and how it works.
International payment gateway notion and principle of work
A payment gateway is a piece of software designed to facilitate domestic and international payments, which happen online and offline. Whenever a payer is outside the bank facility and does not pay with cash, they need a sort of remote access to their money, which is provided by a number of options:
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bank cards, prepaid cards, and virtual cards
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e-wallets
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website interfaces
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e-money wallets and interfaces
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vouchers, etc.
In order to make every single mentioned payment tool work, an international payment gateway is required. This software makes sure that the payment data are gathered, processed, encrypted, transferred, and received back according to modern data security standards that are defined for the financial transaction market.
Usually, a PG does not take part in the financial operations physically — it only transfers the data amongst the involved parties of the transaction, including banks, e-wallet/e-money operators, and third-party financial providers, which actually update the account balances due to the data received from a PG.
A brief description of the process of PG’s work looks like this:
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A payer starts a transaction of payment online or offline
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A PG gathers the data about payment, payer, and means of payment, encrypts them and sends via a communication channel to the payment processor (bank/account operator)
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The processor checks whether the transaction can be done (balance availability, imposed restrictions, the absence of the signs of fraud in this particular transaction, etc.) and allows or prevents this transaction
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The information about this result returns to a PG, which decodes it and shows the result on the front-end screen to a payer: declined or approved.
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If approved, then a payment processor updates the account balance by withdrawing money from it. Then, it sends it to the account of a receiver, which might be opened in this payment processor’s facility or in another. Depending on the further process, the processor might use a PG again to deliver money to the destination.
International global payment gateways that exist in the world
A bank can be a provider, developer, or owner of a PG solution and offer it to its clients when they pay in POS terminals, online, or elsewhere. The same, a third-party provider is not a rare situation on a market. In fact, since the elaboration and certification of a piece of PG costs millions of dollars, only the biggest banks can actually allow financially to develop their own PG. In other cases, they resort to existing solutions on a market: from other banks or third-party providers.
Here is a list of the most well-known providers (owners or developers) of international PGs:
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PayPal
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Virtual Pay
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Amazon Pay
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Google Pay
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Microsoft Pay
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ApplePay
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Braintree
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Payline
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Ingenico
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Adyen
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WePay
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Cybersource
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Skrill
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Stripe
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2CheckOut
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Klarna
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Authorize.Net
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Payza
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SecurionPay
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BlueSnap
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Alipay
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Square and others.
Based on the technology that is used to develop the tool, there exist 4 types of PGs: WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and home-built.
Based on the platform they operate, there can be distinguished POS, online, QR, mobile, MO/TO, and cryptocurrency PGs. Many of them combine more than one type of platform, the same as they can combine more than one type of technology that’s used to design and run them.
Based on the location of an operator, the PGs also broadly vary. Some of them may be working only in one country (like Alipay in China) while others operate in over a hundred countries (like Apple Pay or Fortumo). Most often, however, the solutions are workable only for several or several dozen countries and are being designed specifically to cover the needs of a particular market, which differs from the others with the taxation, legislation, banking restrictions, KYC procedure, money laundering, and other aspects. Sometimes, it is the pure market competition that makes a company design a new piece of software. So, which specific solution to choose is up to your market, first of all, and how well this or that solution fits it.
Conclusion
A payment gateway is a necessary tool to run a domestic and international payment routine. It works well today, it adapts to the changing reality, and it becomes even more efficient over time, especially as AI gets involved in its action.
