Express JS Conditional Routing: How to Route Multiple Payment Gateways

A payment gateway is a commercial service offered by an e-commerce application provider that allows e-business credit cards, online retailing, and traditional clicks and mortar payment processing. It can be provided by banks to its customers and may be supplied by an independent specialist financial service provider such as PayPal, Square, Stripe, etc. In addition, it enables the exchange of payment information between the gateway and the front-end processor (such as a website, mobile phone, or interactive voice response system) or the acquiring bank.

By allowing consumers and companies to pay online, a payment gateway helps with the payment ecosystem's smooth functioning. You do not have to be a payment gateway specialist when you are an online merchant, but you need to grasp the essentials of how an e-payment flows from your customers to your bank account.

This article describes how a payment gateway works, why an online dealer requires one, and how to identify the payment gateway service suitable for your business.

What Is the Need for Having a Payment Gateway?

You may be wondering, "Why is there a payment gateway since it is only an intermediary?" Before we tackle this query, I want to highlight that online payment is a transaction without having a card. You cannot physically swap your customer card to a POS end as you would usually do if you were paying in a brick-and-mortar business. So, the information you submit on the payment page can only be used for the card. But how do you know that the card used by the consumer is their card? In card-free transactions, the danger of fraud is considerably larger, and a payment gateway is helpful in this respect.

Online payment gateways are not so safe and convenient, but they are also never a primary goal for hackers or fraudsters. Businesses relying on e-transaction should, however, be ready to face these types of situations. According to the Thales Data Security Report of 2018, 75% of US businesses and retailers have faced at least one cybersecurity breakdown in their online shops. 

What are the circumstances if you remove the payment gateway from the digital flow of payment? Scammers would have easier access to your processed card data to put fraud and reimbursement on your organization. In addition, fraudsters would develop alternative ways to start illegal transactions, which would expose you to frauds and damage your image in the market even more.

Payment gateways keep your customers' payment data safe to some extent. A payment gateway transmits information from the merchant, the buyer, and the issuing bank to keep undesirable dangers away from sensitive card data using encryption technology. A payment gateway protects traders against expired cards, under-sourced cash, closed bank accounts, exceeding credit limitations, and fraud.

Difference Between Payment Processor and Gateway

Payment gateway is defined as the technology for collecting and transferring payment data from the user to the supplier. It then informs the customer about the rejection or acceptance of the payment. The customer's card data is validated securely by a payment gateway and assets that are accessible, and then merchants are finally paid out. It serves as an interface between the website of a merchant and its buyer. It encodes sensitive payment details to ensure information is safely sent through the merchant from the client to the acquiring bank.

That means the payment gateway works to ensure the transaction can be carried out quickly and safely between your customer and the business. An online payment channel can facilitate the integration of the software by traders. The gateway maintains sensitive card data between the buyer and the dealer as the intermediary in the payment process.

How It Works

Now that we understand why it is essential to integrate e-payment or payment gateways for merchants, let's get a glimpse of how these technologies work and how payment travels from the pockets or accounts of customers to the desired accounts. A better understanding of these can be acquired from researching different technology topics to elevate your knowledge.

• The customer selects the service or product they desire to buy and goes to the payment page. Most payment gates provide you multiple payment alternatives.
  • Host payment page: A hosted payment page is a payment page out of the box where clients are led to checkout. Before transmission to the purchaser, the payment gateway securely processes transactions. If you do not collect or keep card information on your server, the hosted payment page will lessen the PCI load on online retailers.
  • Server-to-server integration: A server-to-server also refers to direct integration, which allows the exchange of data between two servers: the retailer server and the payment gateway server. A direct transaction can be initiated by applying for card details on the payment page. Without being transferred to the payment page in the payment gateway, customers can complete card payment, leading to speedier checkout, a more coherent user experience, and greater control over the payment page from a marketing viewpoint. An integration from server-to-server is appropriate if you gather or save payment data before transferring it to the processing payment gateway.
  • Client encryption:  Client-side encryption refers to encrypting sensitive information from the client-side before transmitting it to the merchant's server. It allows the dealer to streamline your requirements for PCI compliance. In summary, you may collect payments on your website while encrypting the card's data from your browser, using the encryption library of the payment gateway.
    • On the debit or credit card page, the buyer will input their data. The information contains the cardholder's name, the expiration date, and the CVV (Card Verification Value) number. This data is transferred securely onto your payment gateway on an integration basis (hosted payment page, client-side encryption, or server to server integration).
    • Before sending card information to the acquiring bank, the payment gateway encrypts card details and does security checks.
    • The bank delivers the data securely to the card systems (Visa, Mastercard).
    • Card schemes execute another security check and control layer, and payment data is then sent to the issuing bank.

No matter what language you are using to create a website, the initial three steps for integration are the same.

1. First, download source files from Github. 
   • Java 
   • Java Android SDK
2. To acquire your username, token, and password, you need to sign a contract.
3. Integration on the client-side: you require an HTML form for gathering information about the credit and debit cards.

First, the retailer must develop a Client-Side Encryption (CSE) integrated library payment form.  The console on the merchant configuration page may obtain the data from the CSE panel.

It is crucial to ensure that all relevant fields for the types of transactions that will be utilized exist in the payment form. Consult transaction documentation if you are unclear. Do not forget to substitute the action form for the URL of the merchant's server payment handler.

For card input inventory, use the data-encrypted-name attribute. This solution protects the merchant's server against unencrypted card information and prevents any effect on the security of transactions and compliance with PCI rules.

The form may have a personalized identification feature. You may use the form id option to specify every string as the payment form identification. Ensure that the HTML form is updated and that the alternative is set to match it.

JavaScript 

If the merchant does not have an HTML form, you can get HTML-independent encryption from the library of the trusted service provider. In this case, it is vital to bear in mind that the merchant is responsible for ensuring the encryption of card data before it is forwarded to the server.

Integration From Server-Side

An HTTP POST access to gateway API endpoints is required from the merchant's server. The procedure is the same as the traditional customer integrations.