The customer’s bank verifies that the customer has enough money to complete the transaction. The payment gateway securely passes the encrypted data between the merchant’s bank and the customer’s bank. When the customer swipes, dips, or scans their payment method, the data from their card goes to the payment gateway. Here’s what happens behind the scenes once a customer wants to make a purchase from your business and scans or dips their credit card, smartphone, or contactless card to pay. Let’s look at the journey the data takes through a card processor, from the customer’s card to final purchase. Simply put, credit card readers take your customer’s payment information, securely communicate the transaction data, and flow the data from the card to the cardholder's bank and back to you to finish the sale.
If the card reader detects available funds, the transaction is approved. Benefits of credit card readers for store ownersĬredit card readers work by extracting information from a customer’s credit or debit card, transmitting it to the payment processor, and collecting information from the customer’s bank in return.