When it comes to running a successful and profitable business, nothing is more important than providing an easy way for customers to purchase your products. Payment gateways are the ultimate go-to for both B2B and B2C businesses’ websites and apps as they ensure your company gets the benefit out of the online payment collection process.
With multiple payment gateways to choose from, customers can opt for the regional transaction routes as per convenience. Although many payment gateway providers like to advertise the universality of their gateways, they typically won’t highlight when they can’t accept payments from specific card issuers and processing portals. While adding multiple payment options and gateways is the need of the hour, it has its pros and cons.
What Exactly is A Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway provides the technology required to process digital payments and capture payment details. On the other hand, a payment processor facilitates the transaction between customers and merchants.The payment processor acts as a mediator between sellers and the financial institutions (banks) involved in a transaction.
A payment gateway is an essential technology that allows businesses to accept debit or credit card payments and any digital payment services from customers. For instance, payment gateways make it easy for businesses in any kind of industry to authorize payments effectively. In addition, it ensures that sensitive information such as credit card numbers are passed through servers securely to protect the customers’ information.
Offer Alternative Payment Options
One of the best ways to improve customer satisfaction is by providing them with different options to purchase your products or services. For example, while credit cards and debit cards are the most common payment methods, there are plenty of other options customers like to use. Whether it’s paying through services like Paypal, or using their mobile wallet, prepaid gift cards, or using a buy now pay later option, payment gateways allow your customers to pay the way they want.
Not all payment gateways are the same. While they perform the same function, how they integrate into your website differs.
Benefits of using a payment gateway
The checkout process can make or break a sale. Customers often lose trust or interest when the checkout isn’t smooth. Having a reliable payment gateway is key to preventing abandoned carts. And preventing abandoned carts prevents lost sales.
A payment gateway that is quick will make for a smooth checkout process. It should avoid redirecting your customers to a separate webpage. And it should support their preferred payment methods.
Having a payment gateway connected to your brand encourages customer trust. These small factors all add up to securing your sales.
Increased security is another benefit of using a payment gateway. Customer card information is always encrypted, which ensures its protection. This in turn makes your business more secure from fraud, generating customer trust, and makes the business PCI compliant.
When choosing a payment gateway, there are some important factors to consider:
Compatibility
Different payment gateways suit different business types and industries. Some payment gateways work better for physical transactions. And others are better for ecommerce sales. Technically, there are two bases for this classification of payment gateways:
• Payment gateway provider
• Payment flow
The following are different types of payment gateways at a glance:
• Based on the PG Provider
• Based on the Payment Flow
• Third-Party Payment Gateway
• Bank Payment Gateway
• Hosted Payment Gateway
• Self-Hosted Payment Gateway
• API-Hosted Payment Gateway
Speed
You’ll also want to know the settlement time a payment gateway offers, so you can know when to expect your funds.
Integrations
You need to consider how you will integrate a payment gateway in your current business. If you already have a payment processor, you’ll need to see if you can use a third-party payment gateway. You’ll also need to consider any changes to current software or websites that will need to happen.
Fees
As with any new business tool, you’ll need to consider the costs of prospective payment gateways. Data security compliance fees, set-up fees, and authorization fees are a few of the costs to look out for.
Security
Payment gateways handle sensitive card information. This means they need certain industry specific security standards. For example, all payment gateways need PCI DSS compliance. Compare the security of prospective payment gateways to see which one is the most secure.
Customer support
You may need less or more support in the event of technical problems. You should check out what support is available to you, as well as at what times.
Supported payment types
If you have many international customers, then your payment gateway should support them. This means that it should support their preferred currency. Additionally, it should support their preferred payment method. Payment methods vary by country, so this is important to check.
What are some of the advantages of having multiple gateways?
Eases your expansion into new markets
In certain regions, if the payment gateway you’ll use to process payments has local acquiring capabilities, this will make your entry into that market easier. It will eliminate cross-border charges, thus lowering your processing costs and potentially increasing acceptance rates.
Allows you to optimize payments as some gateways may deliver higher acceptance rates for certain transactions, based on the geolocation from which the transaction originates. Or one gateway may charge a lower processing rate for certain payment methods such as ACH. Or, one gateway may perform better than another for one-time purchases or for renewal payments.
Allows for load balancing and risk mitigation
If you experience heavy processing loads during peak periods, having a second gateway will let you offload some of the traffic to the other gateway. This will minimize the risk of any issues or outages which might impact transaction success—and conversions. Can be used as a backup if your primary gateway goes down.
Streamlines the financial reconciliation process
Having multiple gateways enables you to route certain transactions to different gateways. For example, you may choose to always route a certain product line to a specific gateway or choose a different gateway in different regions that better adheres to local compliance. This eases the financial reconciliation process when the reconciliation needs to be separate for different lines of business or different products.
It’s a big decision, so it’s worth taking the time to do your research, read reviews, and ask other business owners about the payment gateways they use.
The Ephanti Advantage
Ephanti makes the process smooth when integrating and managing multiple payment gateways for business. You can add, set up, and optimize all your payment options from a single dashboard. And the best part is that you can bring your own payment gateway to integrate with Ephanti if that helps you to retain the grandfathered or pre-negotiated rates or other advantages you get from your current payment gateway, while you modernize the rest of your digital engagement.
