Hello,

We are Merchant Stronghold. We provide merchant account and payment gateway. Merchants are often unclear on what payment gateways do and why they need them. there is often confusion concerning the gateway's functionality and how it differs from an e-commerce shopping cart. Just as often, Merchant tends to equate payment gateways with a merchant account. Quickly we will try to clear the confusion and put the gateway in its proper place in the e-commerce credit card processing cycle.

A payment gateway is a web-based service that integrates into an e-commerce website's shopping cart and collects payment information provided by customers at the check-out. The gateway then encrypts the data and transmit it to the card issuing bank for authorization. The authorization response is then sent to the merchant and is displayed to the cardholder. In essence, the payment gateway serves for web-based merchants the same purpose that a point of sale terminal does for retail businesses.

Regards*

Merchant Stronghold

www.merchantstronghold.com