The Current State of Payment Gateways

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For merchants, a payment gateway is what helps with transactions between a payment portal and an acquirer such as a bank. Some examples of payment gateways include PayPal, Authorize.Net, and Skrill.

Such service facilitators are integral to the success of a business. This is because factors such as slow transactions, the number of steps involved, and the amount of authorization measures can put a customer off of making a purchase.

Recently, The Strawhecker Group (TSG) published a report on its latest Payment Gateway Directory. The report featured information about factors such as slow or variable performance, APIs, uptime, and authorization rates. Complete with research on approximately 100 payment gateways from both regional startups and reputable international players, TSG was able to shed light on several key points.

Firstly, the market for payment gateways is quite diverse. For instance, it includes several types of entities such as payment networks, new entrants, acquirers, standalone gateways, and terminal providers. 

Payment networks, for instance, include Visa and Mastercard. Meanwhile, acquirers encompass Elavon and Worldpay. As for new entrants, they include Adyen and Stripe. A couple of terminal providers in the report are NCR and Verifone. In addition, some standalone gateways include PayTrace and eProcessing Network. 

Another key point is that 26% of the analyzed gateways pertain to restaurants. Comparatively, this is very close to that of the healthcare industry at 25%. As for B2B merchants, they account for 16% of the top target markets, and 15% are relevant to nonprofits. 

Diving deeper into the report, TSG also found that gift cards are popular when it comes to the support of them. Of the gateways analyzed, 58% of them support gift cards. It should be noted, however, that the rest of the gateways have not yet implemented closed-loop gift card functionality. Closed-loop gift cards are ones that are issued to customers by a merchant. These cards can only be used at the merchant’s own store. 

When it comes to fees, 74% of the gateways analyzed charge a monthly fee, with a median fee of about $18. The lowest fee being charged is $1.20, and 26% of gateways do not charge a monthly fee.

Another significant point to take into consideration is how PayPal is not supported by 58% of the gateways in question. This is in addition to how 86% of gateways do not support PayPal Credit. 

In terms of where payment gateways serve, there is a mix of them that are regional within North America and around the world. The European market, however, is not a focus of the gateways analyzed by TSG. 

The Merchant Brokerteam is also here to help you and your business thrive by making use of the information offered by the report. To contact Merchant Broker, you can either call 1-888-668-0733 or email info@merchantbroker.com.

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