Glossary
Payment gateway
A payment gateway is the software layer between the merchant's checkout and the acquirers or payment providers: it receives the payment request, collects or tokenises the card data, sends the transaction to the right provider, returns the result and notifies the merchant. It is technology, not a licence: the acquirer or the licensed payment service provider that operates the gateway contracts with merchants and handles the money. A white-label gateway is the same software run under the operator's brand.
Gateway, acquirer, PSP
The acquirer holds the licence and the merchant’s liability; the PSP packages acquiring and other methods into one contract and one integration; the gateway is the software either of them uses to take payments online. A PSP may build its own gateway or license one; an acquirer may offer a gateway to its merchants; a software vendor may provide the gateway to both without touching the money.
What a modern gateway includes
Hosted checkout and API, tokenisation and a vault, 3-D Secure, routing to several acquirers and local methods, webhooks and a merchant cabinet; at that point it is usually called orchestration. In a few countries operating a gateway is itself a regulated activity, so the operator must be the licensed party.
On the platform
Tranzify is gateway and orchestration software operated by licensed clients under their own brands: each client’s networks carry its domains and look, its merchants contract with it, and the platform’s vendor never takes part in a payment.
Updated: 2026-11-08