Payment gateway testing

So you have an e-commerce website that contains a payment gateway system to approve
payments for online purchases made via credit/debit card or net banking. A payment
gateway is an e-commerce service that encrypts payment information, authorizes
payment and securely passes the information between the buyer and the merchant.

A transaction through a payment gateway is successful when it is able to process

the payments and complete the order effectively. There are several things that go
into ensuring whether your payment gateway is working accurately. One of the ways
to achieve this is through payment gateway testing.

Payment gateway testing unlike testing of other applications and features requires
rigorous planning and diligence since it involves testing of different aspects such
as security, web service connectivity, authorization, and data encryption. Thus,
payment gateway testing involves rounds of apprehensions, planning and concise
strategy for execution.

Here are the 5 essentials to keep in mind while planning, documenting and executing
payment gateway testing:

1. Functionality

When it comes to testing of payment gateways, functionality comes in the first

place. While documenting and executing functional testing of payment gateways, do
not forget to test the following aspects:

Does it list all the options of payment such as Credit Card, Debit Card, Net
Banking, Cash Card?
Does it apply region-specific charges and taxes and perform calculations correctly?
Does it notify customer and the owner about the transaction through email
Does it change the language and currency format on user’s request?
Does it take appropriate buffer time between checkout and confirmation page and
returns the user back to the application?
Does it show right error message during an unsuccessful or incomplete transaction?

2. Integrations

The next obvious thing to consider for testing is integrations of your payment
gateway with different credit cards and banking services. This largely covers the
web services connected to different bank servers and hence it involves following
points:

Does it connect to the right bank/financial service?

Does it request and respond right information to and from the banking server?
Does it process correct amount in the right currency format from the banking
server?
Does it complete the entire process on time and in the correct order?
3. Security

Well, security is the most important aspect when it comes to testing payment
gateways. It is more than difficult to keep your online transactions safe from
cyber-attacks, penetration activities, and vulnerabilities. Thus, following things
should go to the list of payment gateway security testing.

Is it safe from cross-site scripting, SQL injections, and spoofing?

Is it data-manipulation and URL-manipulation proof?
Does it contain user roles and authorization management?
Are the web services, data and information channels connected to banking servers
encrypted?
Are proper SSL certificates and safety access points implemented at each
transaction stage?
4. Database

Database is again an important aspect for a successful working of a payment

gateway. All the information lying at the backend of payment gateway contributes to
successful completion of transactions through payment gateways and hence, following
are the key aspects to keep in mind while testing payment gateways:

Are the customer details like name, address, contact number collected & maintained
properly?
Are the credit card, banking and cash wallet entries collected and stored properly?
Are the information databases stored in the proper format with right access?
Are the database files accessible by the authorized users from the intended places
and networks?
5. Performance

Performance is yet another aspect to be included in testing payment gateways. To

achieve the desired performance benchmarks, all you have to do is consider the
following testing criteria:

Does it work during load times?

Does it work across different environments?
Are proper load balancing components configured to the gateway?
Does it contain proper memory, space and network across server for accurate
functioning?
This is just a start to a good foundation of payment gateway testing. There are a
lot of other things that go into comprehensive testing. Once this initial level
testing is properly planned and authored, you need to dig deeper and identify
critical areas of testing depending on your requirements. Further, you may want to
get the right automated test tool such as TestingWhiz to help you test different
aspects of your payment gateway.