In order to accept credit cards on the Internet, an online merchant or business needs to have an Internet Merchant Account, a credit card processing system (shopping cart software or a complete ecommerce solution), and a secure payment gateway (using API - application programming interface) to connect to banking networks for authorization of credit card transactions.

The payment gateway automates the processing of credit card transactions online, by processing your customers orders in real-time (3-4 seconds).

Since the payment gateway is the secure connection and transmission of the orders through to banking networks, it is independent of the interface (point of sale software or catalog/cart) that you use to transmit the order information through the payment gateway.