Integrating Payment Gateway in a Mobile Application - Enterprise Mobile App Development Company Blog

Like online shopping, e-commerce business, online train and flight reservations, bill payments, hotel and cab bookings have become a norm today, mobile app development companies are integrating payment gateway in the mobile apps so that online transactions can be completed with a couple of clicks to make payments easy for customers and successful foundation for merchants. In-store mobile payments have boomed online sales and integrating payment gateway in mobile applications has become the need of the hour for mobile app developers. If you plan to integrate payment gateway to your app also, here are the basics of the process you need to be familiar with.

Payment gateway
A payment gateway is a service that permits processing of credit card payments for online as well as conventional retail stores. It facilitates swift and continuous shopping experience for the users. Integrating the payment gateway to your online store app is a way to keep your customers engaged and satisfied.

The mechanism by which payment gateway linking works
For integrating the payment gateway in mobile apps, the retailer needs to have a merchant account and a payment gateway. When the customer goes to the e-commerce mobile app and selects the product he prefers to buy, the product is added to the cart, and the cart gets linked up with the payment gateway. The request is then sent to the card processor which asks for bank card details and is directed to the payment gateway. The function of a gateway is to encrypt this data and send it to the card-associated bank where it is validated with the help of a payment system. Once approved, the bank sends the authorization code to the seller, and the money is debited from the customer’s card and transferred to the seller’s card in a defined period. This information is automatically displayed from payment gateway to merchant account and remains stored for some days till it is sent to the merchant’s bank.

Merchant account
The merchant accounts offered by payment processors are mainly of two types - dedicated merchant account and the aggregate merchant account. While the dedicated merchant account is tailor-made for business transactions of an individual business owner or merchant and enables the owner to control his funds and expenses, some additional expenditure has to be borne for implementing it as different providers charge different fees and this may prove to be tricky for your budget. It may also make the purchase process longer and takes a deep insight into the credit check. The aggregate merchant account is more popular and widely used as all the owner’s funds, and other people’s money can be stored in it together in one place by providing some personal information. It is less complex and has quicker acquisition. PayPal, Stripe, WorldPay, Amazon Payments, Braintree, and all other big payment processing providers are all offering the aggregate merchant account.

Direct credit card integration
Integrating the credit card directly to the API is no cake walk. It makes you solely responsible for processing a safe and secure purchase with the digital transaction of the money. Any misappropriation of online funds or fake dealing will be your responsibility. Certain gateways may not be compatible with mobile apps and may not accept the tokenization process as their environment may not be found to be authenticated which prevents payments.

Payment Card Industry or PCI
By choosing the PCI you can skip the risk associated with API. You get the benefits of having a comprehensive native solution and a strong updated library for both Android and iOS operating systems. Moreover, the use of fully encrypted and tokenised data adds to the security. However, service charges are applicable for all types of cards.

Payment gateway providers
Choosing your payment gateway provider will give you a tough time as all of them offer almost the same advantages and features and claim to offer the best, hassle-free, and secure payment process. Let’s check out the features of the main players.

PayPal
PayPal was introduced as a digital wallet, supports 26 different currencies, and is used mainly in 203 countries. It offers exclusive services like split payment, creating a simple invoice, hosting the merchant’s own checkout page, reporting the merchant’s financial activity, paying different people at the same time without any inconvenience, performing bitcoin transactions, and so on. PayPal integration is the ideal option for rationalizing the payment procedure in mobile apps.

Braintree
Braintree is another incredible online payment solution that processes payments from credit cards, Bitcoin, and popular apps such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay. It is compatible with seven programming languages, supports 130 different currencies, and is used in more than 40 countries. Its exclusive services include offering the facility of a recurring bill, authorizing payments with just one click via the use of PayPal and Venmo, protecting against advanced attack, and providing 24/7 technical support. Service charges are applicable after your trading account reaches $50,000, after which a fixed monthly service charge and a transaction fee of 2.9% is charged.

Stripe
Stripe provides a developer-friendly, simple, easy, and customizable mobile payment gateway. It supports nearly 140 currencies, bitcoins, a large number of programming languages (including Java, Ruby, and PHP), both iOS and Android platforms, large volumes of libraries, and a number of APIs. Its exclusive services include easy subscriptions, direct payments to a bank account, card storage, integration of social media buttons for payment process, and monthly financial report.

Application security certificates
Mobile app developers need to ensure that the whole process of payment gateway integration is done considering the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance that has set security standards for protecting card information of an ongoing or past transaction.

Integrating payment gateway SDK in an App
All mobile payment gateway providers offer SDKs to developers comprising mobile platform libraries. These libraries facilitate credit card information while processing and reduce the risk of PCI. Thus, SDK integration makes the tasks easier for the mobile app developers and also aids the development of payment forms that can be used to collect audience data.

Final thoughts
Payment gateway integration in a mobile application is indispensable in the present scenario. Keeping the above things in mind, select the payment gateway provider and the process you want to choose for integrating it. It will help the business drive its sales by simplifying the process of making online payments and giving your business an edge over others.