1. Payment Acceptance

How customers pay you:

• Online payments: credit/debit cards, e‑wallets, bank transfers

• Offline payments: POS machines, cash on delivery (COD)

• Mobile payments: apps like Apple Pay, Google Pay

• Recurring billing: automatic monthly/annual charges (for subscriptions)

2. Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is the system that connects your website/app with banks and card networks to process payments securely.

Purpose:

• Transmit data securely

• Authorize payments

• Protect against fraud

Examples: Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, Payoneer, 2Checkout

3. Payment Processor

The payment processor is the service that actually handles the transaction behind the scenes and moves money from the customer’s bank to your business account.

Role includes:
Sending transaction requests to card networks
Communicating with issuing banks
Settling funds into your account

4. Merchant Account

A merchant account is a special bank account where customer payments are held temporarily before being moved to your regular business bank account.

Important because:

• It acts as an intermediate hub

• It helps reduce risk for banks

Some modern systems (like Stripe) bundle this automatically.

5. Security & Compliance

Payment Handling must follow safety standards to protect customer data:

PCI DSS Compliance – required standard for card data security
Encryption & Tokenization – protects sensitive data
Fraud Detection – flags suspicious transactions

This safeguards your business and builds customer trust.

6. Fees & Charges

When handling payments you typically pay:

Transaction fees: fixed + % of sale (e.g., 2.9% + $0.30)
Gateway fees: monthly or per‑transaction
Chargeback fees: when customers dispute payments