A payment gateway facilitates a payment transaction by the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as a website, mobile phone or interactive voice response service) and the front-end processor or acquiring bank.

Matrices is a merchant service provided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payments processing for e-businesses, online retailers. The payment gateway may be provided by a bank to its customers but can be provided by a specialized financial service provider as a separate service, such as a payment service provider.