Payment gateway is described by Wikipedia as "an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar". In my opinion, a payment gateway is simply a switch that facilitates payment online by cardholders to merchants.
A payment gateway is the online version of a point of sale machine, both of which service the need for merchants who have a merchant facility with a bank to receive payments online from cardholders. It is imperative that the payment gateway provides a secure method of communicating sensitive credit card details between the cardholder, the merchant and the bank. With a payment gateway service it is not necessary for the credit card details to be seen by the merchant during credit card processing.
A large percentage of the payment gateway transactions are credit cards, but more and more alternative internet payment methods are coming to light in order for current credit card merchants to benefit from a broader selection on internet payment methods and increase their chances of being paid by their customers.
PayGate payment gateway has a variety of products (for example PayWeb, PayPoint, PayBatch, PayBill, PayXML) to suit the specific needs of merchants who through a single interface can benefit from a variety of online payment options such as Ukash and FNB Cell Pay Point. Combined with this, there are payment gateway value-adds such as fraud and risk protection (PayProtector) and currency conversion (PayFx) enhance the merchant's ecommerce offering.
