Topic:

What is a Merchant Gateway, and why would I need one?

Solution:

A Merchant Gateway (sometimes referred to as a merchant account, online credit card processor, internet gateway, and more) is a tool that enables a merchant bank account to connect to a website or other online service in order to process credit card transactions online.

In this case, the Merchant Gateway allows RegOnline to pass along an attendee’s credit card transaction request to your merchant bank account. The Merchant Gateway is the actual processor that sends the request to the bank, and then returns the message (transaction approved, or declined) back to RegOnline. So the Merchant Gateway is, essentially, the middle man between RegOnline and your merchant bank account. Therefore, you will need a Merchant Gateway if your RegOnline event will be processing credit cards online.

The following example illustrates the steps for a typical online credit card transaction:

1. RegOnline collects attendee information, including request for a credit card purchase
2. RegOnline sends a request for the transaction to the Merchant Gateway
3. Merchant Gateway routes the request to your merchant bank account for approval 
4. The merchant bank account processes the request and sends it to the attendee’s financial institution (or bank) 
5. The attendee's financial institution processes the request, and returns either a transaction approval or decline message to merchant account 
6. Your merchant bank account verifies the message, and sends it back through Merchant Gateway 
7. The Merchant Gateway delivers the message back to RegOnline 
8. RegOnline displays a message to the attendee that their transaction was either approved (“Thank you for registering!...”), or declined (“We’re sorry…”).

Additional Information:

For more information, we recommend that you take a look at "What You Didn't Know About Payment Systems", an excellent article from the practical ecommerce web site.

Related Links:

• What Merchant Gateways are supported in RegOnline?
• Everything that you wanted to know about credit card processing
• How do I get started with online credit card processing?
• How do I get set up to use my own merchant account?
• What credit card number can I use to enter test registrations?
• User's Guide - Manager - Administration - Set Up New Merchant Account
• About RegOnline's information and system security
• About Transactions in RegOnline

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