There's no way around it. No matter what size your business is or what industry you work in, if you accept credit cards, keeping up with the latest requirements is difficult at best. Credit card security has become an even greater challenge for merchants with the advent of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard put forth by The PCI Security Standards Council.
There are numerous "buzz words" in the payment industry today such as tokenization, point-to-point encryption, and many others. Data security has become critical to any business. All of these new technologies can be confusing for any merchant, who at the end of the day only wants to ensure that all payment transactions are processed and arrive at the bank in a secure and timely fashion. Every time a card is swiped, a check is written or a gift card is redeemed, multiple institutions are involved in the process, including the merchant establishment, the gateway, the banks, the processors and the card associations. In the midst of this rapid change and emerging payment types, a payment gateway is at the core of the payment transaction process. The right payment gateway can better manage communication with the banks and processors.
