Definition
A payment gateway is the technology layer that captures payment details at checkout, encrypts them, and transmits them to the payment processor and card networks for authorization. It returns the approve or decline response to the merchant in real time.
Historically, gateways and processors were separate vendors with separate contracts and fees. Modern full-stack providers such as HL Hunt combine gateway, processor, acquiring, and risk tooling into a single API and single pricing sheet.
Example
A shopper enters a card on your site. The gateway tokenizes the card, applies 3-D Secure if risk warrants, forwards the authorization to the acquirer, and returns "approved" in roughly 300 milliseconds.
How HL Hunt handles it
HL Hunt is a full-stack gateway and processor. You get one integration, one dashboard, and no separate gateway fee, with multi-acquirer routing built in to lift approval rates.