How a Credit Card Gateway Operates

First an online credit card holder finds the merchant's website and to start the processing transaction they add products to a shopping cart. When the customer finishes shopping they will check out and enter their credit card billing information. at Visa and MasterCard secure payment gateway and this is seamless processes for the customer.

Once the customers billing information has been captured at the payment gateway it is then electronically transmitted to the issuing bank. The processor will pass the information from the payment gateway onto the bank that issued the credit card. The issuing bank will verify the credit card number and check to make sure that the requested transaction amount is available on the card. The bank will then freeze amount of the purchase for the merchant and send the processor back either an approval number or a decline message.

For gateway transaction it should not take more that 3 seconds from the time that the customer entered their information the approval number or decline message will be sent back to the merchant’s payment gateway.

The gateway will pass the approval code back to the merchant's site so the merchant can begin the fulfillment process.

At this point final payment is secured and is settled to the merchant's internet merchant account under the terms and conditions of the merchants processing agreement.