What every e-commerce site needs from a modern payment gateway

What is an e-commerce payment gateway, and why does it matter?

A payment gateway is more than just a bridge between buyer and merchant. It plays a critical role in authorising, routing, and settling payments. When it works well, you don’t notice it. However, if it slows things down or lacks local options, the impact is clear and costly.

The right gateway affects more than conversion. It shapes how you manage cash flow, how much fraud risk you carry, and how easily you scale globally. It should help reduce failed payments, streamline settlement, and support multiple payment types across regions. The global online payment gateway market is expected to more than double from $19.2 billion in 2023 to $40.3 billion by 2030, driven by e-commerce adoption.

Payment gateway models and checkout flows explained

Hosted checkout and redirected models

These methods are quick to set up and can help minimise your PCI DSS scope. Many merchants use hosted online checkouts to reduce compliance scope. However, they often break the checkout flow, increasing the likelihood of cart abandonment and reduced trust, as the user is redirected away from your site.

API-integrated and on-site checkout

A single API integration can offer saved payment details, flexible UI, and control over the customer experience. Merchants using custom checkout flows have seen up to 15-25% improvement in abandonment rates.

Supported payment methods: The must-have list

Your gateway should support more than cards. A complete setup includes:

• Credit and debit cards (Visa and Mastercard account for 69% of credit card transactions worldwide)
• Digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay+, GCash, Dana, etc.)
• Bank transfers and ACH
• Subscription billing with automatic retry logic
• Regional options like GrabPay, PayNow, KakaoPay, or Touch’n Go

Wallet usage has grown over 50% globally between 2020 and 2024, and regional wallets now cover a significant market share in APAC, with places like Japan seeing its cashless payment ratio rise to 39.3% in 2023.

Security and compliance requirements you can’t ignore

Data security is non-negotiable, and one of the most important concerns in adopting a payment gateway. Here are some features you need:

SCA adoption in Europe led to a 40-60% fraud reduction but also introduced considerable conversion drops, which adaptive authentication can help address.

Developer and integration considerations

Technical teams want tools that fit the stack and stay out of the way, such as:

• RESTful APIs with clear documentation: Fast integration with consistent behaviour across endpoints means fewer bottlenecks for engineering teams.
• SDKs for iOS, Android, Web: Prebuilt software kits help speed up mobile and web app integration, reducing time to market.
• Sandbox testing, webhook support, and versioning: A dedicated test environment and support for event-driven systems enable robust QA and easier debugging.
• CMS plug-ins and ready-made components: Out-of-the-box support for platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento accelerates deployment without heavy dev work.
• White-labelling and branding control: Allows you to match your checkout experience with your brand's look and feel without needing to build from scratch.

Global e-commerce requires global payments

Multi-currency and localised payment methods

Global shoppers expect to see familiar payment options and their own currency. A gateway that supports multi-currency pricing and region-specific methods makes it easier for buyers to complete a transaction. It also reduces cognitive load and trust barriers.

For example, offering GCash in the Philippines or PayNow in Singapore isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a basic expectation. The same goes for local card schemes, bank redirects, and cash-based payment codes in LATAM. Merchants that display prices and allow payment in local currencies can see improvements in conversion.

Supporting these localised options not only improves customer experience, but also broadens your market reach without the need for local entities.

Cross-border compliance and FX handling

Selling internationally comes with added complexity. Local regulations, tax treatment, and currency exchange all influence the bottom line. A payment gateway should help you manage these complexities, not amplify them.

One of the key challenges is FX transparency. Cross-border transactions often include hidden currency conversion costs that eat into margins, typically 1.5–7.5% per transaction. A provider that offers competitive, clearly broken-down pricing gives merchants predictability and cost control.

Also critical is regulatory alignment. As new directives like PSD3 tighten cross-border rules, especially for EU and non-EEA transactions, your gateway must handle requirements like name-matching (Confirmation of Payee) and adaptive 3DS flows. Without that, you risk increased declines and fraud liability.

A modern gateway simplifies these burdens and lets you focus on growth, not on decoding compliance rules for each new market.

Checkout UX: frictionless, fast, and mobile-optimised

Most shoppers who abandon carts usually have this experience: They hit friction, too many fields, redirects, or slow-loading screens, and then leave. This is even more pronounced on mobile, where 70% of e-commerce traffic originates, but abandonment rates are up to 85% higher on certain platforms without optimised checkout experiences.

A gateway that prioritises mobile-first design can make a measurable difference. That includes support for fast, responsive flows like Scan to Link (where a QR code takes a shopper directly to payment), one-click payments using tokenised cards, and interfaces that feel local, both in language and layout. These experiences reduce hesitation and build trust, especially when paired with saved payment details or digital wallets that auto-fill data.

When checkout feels native and intuitive, shoppers are likely to complete their transaction. In some cases, simply streamlining the UX and reducing steps can raise conversion.

Merchant tools: reporting, analytics, and dashboards

Running a global e-commerce business means more than processing payments. You need to see what’s happening, why it's happening, and how to improve performance. A modern gateway should give you clear, actionable insights.

That starts with real-time transaction visibility — successful, declined, and pending payments, all accessible in a unified dashboard. However, surface-level stats aren’t enough. You need rejection reason codes to diagnose payment failures, chargeback data to spot patterns, and filterable reports across currencies, payment methods, and regions.

Consolidation is just as important. If you operate in multiple countries or sell through several storefronts, toggling between separate dashboards slows everything down. A central view simplifies reconciliation and lets you compare performance across locations or segments without stitching together spreadsheets.

If your business spans multiple teams, such as finance, operations, and support, the gateway should offer role-based access to make sure the right data is available to the right people. Less friction for your buyers. Less guesswork for your teams.

Pricing and fees: what to watch for

Costs often hide in the details. While headline rates might look similar across providers, the real differentiator is in the pricing structure. Interchange++ offers transparency in card payments by separating the transaction fees into actual interchange, scheme fees, and processor markup. This lets you trace costs back to the source, rather than wondering how a bundled rate was calculated.

Beyond pricing models, you’ll want a gateway that’s upfront about every possible fee, whether it’s for chargebacks, cross-border payments, or currency conversion. These can easily erode your margins, especially in high-volume or international operations. A gateway that offers local acquiring in target markets helps reduce those cross-border charges and gives you a more predictable cost base.

Risk management and dispute handling

Fraud isn’t just a security problem. It’s a conversion problem, a revenue problem, and a trust problem. Payment gateways need to do more than detect threats; they need to avoid false positives that block good customers.

Advanced fraud tools rely on real-time behavioural analysis, machine learning models, and velocity checks to distinguish between risky and legitimate activity. Some providers see 30–50% reductions in fraud reduction, which means more genuine transactions go through.

Look for gateways that offer detailed chargeback insights, automated resolution workflows, and tools that surface patterns early, before they affect your authorisation rates or incur extra fees.

Merchant experience and operational efficiency

Getting started with a payment gateway shouldn’t take months. Whether you’re a growing business or an enterprise with complex operations, the onboarding experience matters. That includes fast compliance checks, responsive support, and a clear path from setup to transacting.

Day to day, operational flexibility makes all the difference. Can you receive payouts in your preferred currency? Can you split payments across multiple sellers or partners if you operate a marketplace model? These aren’t edge cases; they’re real requirements for many modern merchants.

When a gateway handles settlement, reporting, and reconciliation cleanly, your finance and operations teams can focus less on fixes and more on strategy.

Future-ready features of a modern gateway

Payments don’t stand still. New buyer expectations, regulatory changes, and business models are reshaping what’s considered standard. A modern gateway should be ready for it.

Subscription commerce has grown rapidly, having grown 437% from 2012 to 2024. Supporting tokenised billing, automated retries, and lifecycle management isn’t optional for businesses relying on recurring revenue.

Open banking, instant payments, and real-time payout capabilities are also rising in demand. So is support for mass payments and partner disbursements, especially in creator, freelance, and platform economies. Future-proofing your payments stack means choosing a gateway that evolves with your roadmap.

Consider the trade-offs: control, cost, complexity

No gateway does everything. The right choice depends on where you are now and where you plan to go next.

A hosted gateway gives you a simpler setup with lower compliance overhead but sacrifices full control over UX. An API-driven option brings greater flexibility but requires more development effort. A full suite might suit larger operations looking to consolidate tools, while a lightweight, modular approach could work better for fast-moving teams that prefer building around specific needs.

The key is clarity. Know which features are essential, which ones you’ll grow into, and where you’re willing to compromise. Because a good fit today shouldn’t become a bottleneck tomorrow.

Ready to take your e-commerce payments to the next level? Contact Antom for a demo or to get started with a unified, seamless payment gateway that puts performance, flexibility, and global reach at the core.