A payment gateway is a software program that acts as an intermediary between the website and the merchant account.
Payment gateway vs payment processor vs merchant account.
In fact the two serve totally different functions.
It allows your customers to submit payment information via the web.
A payment gateway is a crucial component to ecommerce.
The payment gateway is the technical element.
The merchant account is strictly for approving and denying credit card transactions while the payment gateway feeds the merchant account the actual information that is used to process said credit card number.
The payment processor is the company that then takes over authenticating the transaction and relaying information between the acquiring yours and the issuing your customer s bank accounts.
There may be a possibility that you are still a bit confused about them.
An online payment gateway works like a credit card machine in a sense.
A merchant account is the actual account that a business sets up in order to process credit card payments.
As a rule payment processors prefer not to market their services.
There are payment processor that offer direct merchant services but the majority of them provide payment processing.
The software that transfers the cardholder s information to the payment processor.
Merchant accounts are provided by a merchant acquirer or acquiring bank which may also be a credit card processor.
If you are reading this article then probably you have already read multiple articles about the differences between payment gateway merchant account and payment processor.
A payment gateway facilitates online transactions and allows you to process them while a merchant account is a holding account where those payments first land before being deposited into your regular bank account.
A payment processor enters into a reselling agreement with a payment gateway or a merchant account provider so to offer their services directly to an online merchant.