In the world of digital commerce and online ordering, online payments are quickly becoming the payment method of choice for most, if not all transactions. This enables the food service industry of all colors, shapes, and sizes to take their in-store dining experiences, virtually and online.
Is your restaurant establishment thinking of introducing a digital ordering channel for its customers? You came to the right place!!! One concept you need to familiarize yourself with is something called: Payment Gateway. This aids in providing customers with value-added peace of mind, alongside the necessary safeguards that protects and secures customer digital ordering experiences, while reducing your restaurant’s risk of fraud.
What is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway is a specialized piece of software that facilitates the electronic process of payments.
It is also used to authorize transactions between a business and its customers. These transactions can take the form of an in-store purchase at a physical Point-of-Sales (POS) terminal, or online by virtue of a digital ordering system.
What Does a Payment Gateway Do?
The payment gateway plays many vital roles in handling sensitive data associated with a customer’s purchase. For starters, it helps ensure that personally identifiable information about the customer such as their credit card details, name, address, etc., are:
- Secure
- Encrypted
- Processed
- Validated
- Authorized
Do Payment Gateways Provide 100% Security?
As noted by American writer and best-selling novelist, Sidney Sheldon, “Nothing lasts forever.” Thus, although payment gateways do their best to ensure that the highest degree of data privacy protocols and security practices are in place, nothing is ever 100%.
Now, there are some truths and assurances that payment gateways do provide certain guarantees that the data being transferred is passed securely between a business and its customers. However, it is also the responsibility of restaurant establishments to certify that their digital ordering platform is also secure. For example, ensuring that all visitors placing their meal orders online are routed to a secure page with a reinforced connection (i.e., https instead of http). Or ensuring that the online ordering site does not contain any mixed content (i.e., images, or hyperlinks that contain both secure and non-secure references).
A 10,000 Foot Overview of the Process?
Most payment gateways follow the typical process outlined below and handled all behind-the-scenes, transparent to customers:
- The customer places an order.
- The customer pays with a preferred method of payment (e.g., credit card).
- The business (a.k.a. merchant) transfer details about the order to the payment gateway.
- The payment gateway submits transaction order details to the issuing bank.
- The issuing bank authenticates the transaction.
- The issuing bank determines if the transaction should be accepted or declined.
- The issuing bank sends the authorization status to the payment gateway about whether the transaction is accepted or declined.
- The payment gateway sends authorization status back to the business.
- If authorization is accepted:
- Bank issues funds to the payment gateway.
- Payment gateway issues funds to the business.
