With the world of commerce digitalizing at a fast pace and e-commerce taking over brick and mortar stores at a rapid rate, you may have come across the term ‘payment gateway’ in recent times, whether you are an avid online shopper or a merchant running an online store on the web.
You may also have wondered what a payment gateway is, and if you still have not been able to find the answer to this question, you have landed at the right place – we are talking all about payment gateways, their importance for businesses and customers, and their presence in Pakistan.
What is ‘Payment Gateway’?
Simply explained, an online payment gateway is a digital system that receives a request to make a payment against a purchase from the customer, processes the request, and transfers the amount to the merchant’s account. It is the link between the buyer and the merchant that ensures that the payment is processed swiftly and transferred securely from the customer to the merchant.
The functionality of a payment gateway involves the following stakeholders:
- merchant: the online business offering any product(s) or service(s) on a digital platform against a price that can be paid by the buyer via any payment gateway(s) being offered by the merchant
- buyer: the individual making the purchase on the merchant’s digital platform and paying for it via any of the payment gateways available on the merchant’s online store
- issuing authority: the financial institute that holds the account, funds, and payment details of the buyer –this is where the payment process initiates and the request to transfer funds is made
- card network: the credit card companies (like Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, Discover, American Express etc.) that manage and approve the transactions made online through the card
- acquiring authority: the financial institute that holds the merchant’s account, funds, and payment details – this is where the funds are transferred from the customer’s end to make a purchase
With the definition of a payment gateway now in place, let us move on to why you need to offer more than one on your online store.
Offering Multiple Payment Gateways – Advantages
- Smoother Processing
Having multiple payment gateways on your online store can prevent your business from losing sales to occasional downtimes that any payment gateway may be facing, by offering your customers alternate methods to pay through and complete their purchase.
- Increased Conversions
More potential customers tend to convert into buyers when they are presented with the option to pay the way they prefer at checkout, which may be amongst any of the multiple payment gateways that you have integrated into your e-commerce platform.
- Wider Customer-base
By offering multiple payment gateways, you equip more customers with purchasing power, even the individuals who are not empowered inconventional buying capacity like possessing credit/debit cards. This broadens the customer base that you can tap.
- Better Customer Experience
Catering to your customers’ needs and preferences by offering them multiple payment gateways to choose from suiting their convenience adds toa good customer experience, maintaining a caring image of your business.
Now that you know all these advantages of offering multiple payment gateways as an online business to your customers, let us help you move on to the next step – integrating multiple payment gateways to your e-commerce platform and realizing all its benefits in the form of a thriving business. While it once used to be a common practice to integrate each payment gateway separately into websites, Pakistan has advanced on from that time since the introduction of QisstPay’s 1-Click Checkout systemin the e-commerce and fintech niche, which is now being widely adopted by big and small online businesses across the country.
With the 1-Click Checkout platform, all the leading and newly budding payment gateways in Pakistan not only come place, but also become exceptionally easy to integrate into your online store: all at once and without a code – no backend hassle! Meeting the Payment CardIndustry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and being ISO certified for security standards also makes 1-Click Checkout one of the safest online payment platforms in Pakistan. What makes it the most preferred checkout system by businesses and users alike is its fast processing power, as the name suggests ,making payments as quick as just a click.
Here are all the payment gateways in Pakistan being currently offered by 1-Click Checkout that you can easily integrate into your e-commerce platform:
Payment Gateways in Pakistan
The conventional and classic way to make online payments made more secure and smoother than ever with 1-ClickCheckout. Not only does the 1-Click Checkout system add an extra layer of security to the payment process, preventing fraudulent transactions via comprehensive checks at multiple points, but also makes it a lot easier to pay through this method by securely storing sensitive data and information entered once by customers at checkout. This significantly increases conversions by reducing friction at checkout.
A product of Telenor, one of Pakistan’s largest telecommunication organizations, EasyPaisa is the first mobile banking platform and digital wallet launched in Pakistan back in 2009.While the EasyPaisa payment gateway function sunder the umbrella of Telenor Microfinance Bank, it operates as a branchless banking service, empowering underserved masses. This makes it an ideal payment gateway to maximize conversions on your online store, by giving purchasing power to individuals who do not possess a bank account.
Another digital payment gateway offering safe and fast transactions both locally and globally, making it a great payment method to offer on your e-commerce platform if you are trying to tap an international market, targeting potential customers who are shopping at your store online from other countries.
QisstPay offers its own interest-free installment plan under 1-Click Checkout as well, if you choose to offer it as a payment method on your online store. The first ever BNPL service in Pakistan, QisstPay offers users to pay for a purchase in 4 or 6 monthly installments at a 0% interest rate, making them easy to pay off. This mode of payment also boosts your sales by widening your customer base to include individuals with lesser purchasing power.
Also a conventional and one of the most widely preferred mode of payment, allowing customers to pay for their purchase in cash at the time of delivery, when receiving their order. Offering this payment method captures all the potential customers who are either not equipped with any of the advanced digital payment methods listed above, or are not comfortable entering sensitive payment details at checkout online due to security concerns.
With all these leading payment gateways already being offered under 1-Click Checkout and more underway, there is no reason to hold back from integrating it into your e-commerce platform right away and watch your sales skyrocket by accomplishing all the advantages of offering multiple payment gateways to your customers.
