What it is, and why it matters.
A payment gateway is the layer that carries a card transaction from your checkout to an acquirer and back. For straightforward businesses, any gateway will do. For subscription brands, high-ticket sellers, and merchants in specialist categories, the gateway becomes the difference between revenue captured and revenue quietly lost to avoidable declines.
Vertlo provides card processing, tokenisation, and authorisation infrastructure with routing and risk built in — so you are not stitching together a gateway, an acquirer, an anti-fraud tool, and a reporting layer that never quite agree with each other.
Why merchants move their gateway to Vertlo
Protect authorisation rates
Tokenisation, retry logic, and issuer-aware timing recover approvals that a default gateway would surrender.
One integration, many acquirers
Connect once and reach multiple acquiring routes instead of re-integrating every time you add a MID.
3DS without killing conversion
Frictionless flows by default, step-up only where risk or regulation calls for it.
Reporting finance trusts
Authorisations, captures, and settlements reconcile in one operating view with CSV, PDF, and API export.
Inside the gateway
Configured with your acquiring, routing, and reporting during onboarding — and supported by a team that knows the account.
Book a call→Tokenisation & vaulting
PSP and network tokens keep card data out of your systems and improve approval on returning customers.
Authorisation optimisation
Retry windows, partial auth handling, and account-updater support built into the auth path.
3D Secure 2
Risk-based authentication with frictionless and challenge flows managed for you.
Intelligent routing
Rules on card type, geography, and ticket size select the route most likely to approve, with fallbacks armed.
Webhooks & reporting
Signed webhooks for every state change and reporting that reconciles against settlement.
Where the Vertlo gateway is a fit
Subscription & continuity brands
Rebills carry network tokens and issuer-aware retries so recurring revenue is not lost to expired or reissued cards.
High-ticket sellers
Larger orders route to acquirers configured for the ticket size, with 3DS step-up applied only where it protects the sale.
Cross-border merchants
Card geography and currency inform routing so international customers meet a route built to approve them.
Payment gateway FAQs
Answers to the questions merchants ask most about this part of the platform.
What is the difference between a payment gateway and a merchant account?
The gateway transmits and secures the transaction; the merchant account (via an acquirer and MID) is where funds are authorised and settled. Vertlo provides both, configured together, so you are not reconciling two disconnected providers.
Do you support 3D Secure 2?
Yes. Vertlo runs risk-based 3DS2 with frictionless authentication by default and step-up challenges applied where risk or regional rules require it, to protect conversion.
Can I keep my existing checkout?
In most cases yes. The gateway can sit behind hosted fields, an embeddable checkout, or a direct API integration depending on your stack and compliance scope.
How does routing improve approval rates?
By directing each transaction to the acquiring route most likely to approve it — based on card type, geography, ticket size, and billing model — and re-attempting on an approved fallback when appropriate.