Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) is a nature of business or commercial transactions involving information transfer across the Internet. Being one of the most sought after areas in the IT industry, it provides e-business solutions that deal with online trading of products / services through the electronic media.

An eCommerce payment gateway is a service that authorizes credit card payments and processes them securely with a user’s merchant account. Often, a merchant account and payment gateway are set up in one process through the same company.

It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor.

A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as a website, mobile phone or interactive voice response service) and the Front End Processor or acquiring bank.