There\u2019s a lot that goes on behind the scenes when one of your customers swipes a credit card or enters their card information online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the action happens automatically, with information being transmitted between players in near-real time. But who are these players, exactly? How are they helping you out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Computers may be doing more of the heavy lifting, but the basic roles of each participant in the payment process haven\u2019t changed much over the decades. There will pretty much always be a buyer and a seller, plus banks, gateways, and card networks involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So today, I want to explore who\u2019s who in the payment processing flow: what each party\u2019s job is, why it\u2019s important, and how it gets done.<\/p>\n\n\n
We did a detailed breakdown of each step in the payment process flow in another article. But, the information is pretty important to our discussion. So, before we get into the players, let\u2019s do a quick review of how payment processing works.
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