A payment gateway securely processes transactions by capturing and transferring payment data between a customer to the acquirer (merchant). This allows a merchant to collect funds from their customer-base. There are many forms of payments a gateway might support, from authorising cards, taking one off card payments, subscriptions or recurring payments and peer to peer transactions. Payment gateways typically process credit or debit card purchases but may also offer alternative forms of payment such as cryptocurrency, cash on delivery and buy now, pay later systems. Payment gateways may also provide fraud prevention and refund capabilities and services but these can also be added to your stack as separate, specialised components.