A payment gateway is the service that carries a card payment from a checkout to the acquiring bank and back. It acts as the online equivalent of a card terminal, collecting card details securely and returning an approved or declined result.
When a customer pays, the gateway encrypts the card data, sends it to the payment processor and card networks for authorisation, and reports the outcome to the shop or app. Funds are then settled to the merchant account, usually after a delay of a day or more depending on the provider.
Retailers use gateways for web stores and click-and-collect, hospitality venues for online ordering and QR table payments, and many POS systems use one for card-not-present sales, deposits and payment links. Good gateways also support saved cards, refunds, partial payments and fraud screening.
Check supported cards and wallets, fees per transaction, settlement times, whether the gateway integrates with your POS, ecommerce platform and accounting software, and who carries responsibility for PCI DSS compliance. Avoid storing card numbers yourself; tokenisation keeps the data with the gateway.
The gateway is a quiet but critical link: if it fails, online and app sales stop. RetailCare integrates ecommerce and POS systems with payment gateways as part of system integration work.