A good payment gateway is the backbone of online businesses. It makes the payment experience both fast and secure. However, it is challenging to choose the perfect gateway with so many choices available in the market.
To help online businesses, the CEO of Macropay, Adam J Clarke, has expressed his thoughts on the qualities of a great payment gateway.
What Is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway is a third-party merchant service that enables online merchant platforms to accept customer payments. Simply integrating one on an e-commerce website allows online merchants to accept several payments like credit or debit cards, internet banking, and even other alternate payment modes.
“Payment gateways were born with the internet boom and evolved over the years,” said Macropay’s Adam J Clarke. “Online businesses have the liberty to develop their payments infrastructure, but the process is time and labour-intensive and it can cost a lot.
Third-party gateways make the process easy.
But businesses need to be careful when choosing a payment portal. All getaways are not the same, and they often target a different set of markets.”
How to Choose a Great Payment Gateway?
Gateways do the same job – they help online merchant platforms receive payments. However, businesses need to be very specific in choosing which third-party provider they go with. Businesses should know about the markets they are targeting and the popular payment methods in specific countries. Along with some genetic features, payment portals should cater to the market-specific needs of online merchants.
Here are some of the features of an excellent gateway:
Ease of integration
One of the primary reasons online merchants seek the services of a third-party gateway is to minimise the load on technology development. Afterall, the integration process of a payment gateway is crucial. A simple and easy setup process is always best as it keeps the deployment on schedule and at minimal costs.
“Gateway providers should keep the integration process as simple as they can for online merchants. This will allow the merchants to focus on other areas of operations rather than spending time and effort on streamlining payment infrastructure,” explained Clarke.
Range of services
Another essential quality of the payment gateway is how broad their support for accepting payments — different business target different market, and thus, their need for payment mode support also changes.
“Almost all payment gateways support the legacy payment modes like credit or debit card payments, but what makes a gateway special is the support for a wider variety of payments,” said Clarke. “If a business is targeting the Swedish market and another business is looking to enter the Netherlands, then the two of them will want access to different local payment methods. Now, they can either go for the same gateway that offers a broad range of alternative payment support or choose different gateways altogether. This is a key business decision.”
Further, choosing a payment portal with a broad range of services is always beneficial for businesses. It allows them to tap into new markets and customers without the added hassle of onboarding country-specific payment modes individually.
Cost and fees
Certain features of a payment gateway are good, but they often come with a higher cost. Some offers zero integration costs with no monthly fees, but the commission charged on each processed transaction can be very high.
Online merchants should estimate their sales beforehand and evaluate the costs before choosing one. Lowering spend is better but not at the expense of quality. Likewise, a higher cost can mean company-wide budget allocation adjustments, but the gateway security and overall quality of service is worth it.
According to Clarke, “online business should read the fine print of the costs and fees of a payment gateway. Sometimes it makes sense to pay a fixed monthly fee for businesses with large sales volume. But merchants should have a proper monthly and yearly sales estimation to evaluate processing costs.”
Security
Security is a significant concern regarding payments, and checkout pages must ensure that. Gateways handle customers’ sensitive payment data, so they should have the highest encryption technology. The platform’s security will help build customers’ trust in an online merchant platform and thus, indirectly helps boost the businesses.
Clarke adds: “Payment portals should maintain the highest security standards. Anything less is putting customers’ data at risk.”
Fraud detection
Payment frauds are rampant, and e-commerce gateways are the frontline of online business to prevent them. Payment gateways should be integrated with modern fraud detection technologies to safeguard online businesses from cyber fraud.
“The fraud detection technology of payment gateways should always be a step ahead of the fraudsters,” Clarke highlighted. “In this day and age, if a gateway does not support fraud detection, merchants should seriously reconsider onboarding it.”
Customer Support
No matter how good a payment gateway is, there can always be some complications. Any downtime in the checkout page of an online merchant will directly affect sales. It is ideal for gateway providers to have customer support that can be reached around the clock without any hassle. Further, merchants should focus on the language support, otherwise, communication can be a challenge in a multi-lingual market like Europe.
“It is imperative for gateways to build their business with a solid customer support team,” said the Macropay CEO. “In the real world, complications happen; it may be an issue with integration, payment data confirmation, or spotting a real-time scam attempt. The customer support team should be present at any minute to come up with a solution.”
Macropay Offerings
The bullish fintech provides an excellent online payment gateway that can accelerate your sales, making the payment process smooth and secure. It also makes the onboarding process fast and emphasizes making the entire process transparent. The key features of the Macropay gateway are:
- Settlement in local currencies
- Integrated fraud protection tools
- Real account management system
- Constant gateway updates with new features
To get in touch, send an email through support@macropay.net or visit www.macropay.net.
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