# Payment gateway

https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/payment-gateway/

*Last updated: 2026-08-03*

The technical layer that carries a payment request from a website, app or terminal to the acquirer. It moves data; it does not hold a merchant account and it does not settle money. The word is used loosely — many companies sold as "payment gateways" are actually acquirers, resellers or both — which is why the question to ask is who holds the licence and who pays you, not what the product is called.

## Why it matters to a merchant

The word is the most over-used one on a Singapore payments proposal, because it is the one merchants search for and vendors therefore adopt regardless of what they actually are. Read it as a description of a function, not of a company: a gateway moves the transaction, and something else holds the licence and the money. When a proposal says "gateway" and nothing else, the missing information is who the acquirer is.

## Related terms

*Who does what*

- [Acquirer](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/acquirer/)
- [Issuer](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/issuer/)
- [PSP (payment service provider)](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/psp/)
- [Card scheme](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/card-scheme/)
- [Aggregator](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/aggregator/)
- [Reseller](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/reseller/)
- [Payment facilitator (PayFac)](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/payment-facilitator/)
- [Payment orchestration](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/payment-orchestration/)

- [All 74 terms](https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/)

---

*This is the Markdown mirror of https://www.uniwebpay.com/glossary/payment-gateway/, generated from the same source as the page itself. The whole site in one file: https://www.uniwebpay.com/llms-full.txt · What this company is, for answer engines: https://www.uniwebpay.com/llms.txt*