Integrating with the Moneris payment gateway

Looking to leverage our ecommerce services on the Moneris payment gateway? Not sure what your options are? No problem.  This article will break down the ways in which you can integrate our payment solutions into your website/application, whether you want to completely outsource your payment page or just parts of it, or if you want to do it all yourself and simply have Moneris process your payment transactions.

Moneris offers three types of integration:

• Direct Integration – Use our API to communicate with the Moneris Gateway
• Hosted Integration – Let us host your payment page
• Hybrid Integration – Use our API and let us host just the credit card fields of your payment page

Let’s take a closer look at each of these types of integration.

Direct Integration (via API)

With Direct Integration, your customers enter their payment information on your payment page. Using the Moneris API, you send that information through the Moneris gateway for processing.  Transaction results are returned instantly allowing you to close the sale and to update your backend systems for accounting and tracking purposes. 

This method of integration is fully customizable and is suitable for a larger ecommerce site with a web developer on staff. The API supports numerous fraud reduction features which return an instantaneous response identifying potential fraud risks. These features include 3D Secure (Verified by Visa, Mastercard Secure Code, and American Express SafeKey), address verification, card verification digits, and transaction risk monitoring.

Since you are using your own payment page to collect customer information, including credit card numbers, you will also be responsible for implementing and maintaining ongoing compliance with PCI (Payment Card Industry) security standards.

Hosted Integration (using a hosted payment page)

With this type of integration, the collection of payment information is outsourced to Moneris. When ready to checkout, your customer is re-directed to a secure Moneris hosted payment page.  Payment information is entered on the Moneris page which helps reduce the scope of your PCI security requirements. Once the transaction is processed, the customer is returned to your website. You also have the option of embedding the Moneris payment page in an iFrame so that the customer is not aware they are leaving your website to complete their transaction.

Minimal web development is needed to use Hosted Integration.

The advantage of this type of integration is that you automatically get new features as they’re added, requiring little to no development changes. You also reduce the scope of your PCI compliance requirements that are specific to handling sensitive debit and credit card information.

Hybrid Integration (via hosted tokenization)

This solution was designed for merchants using the Moneris API who want the ability to use their own payment page (rather than a hosted page) but who do not want to handle credit card information. How is this possible? Moneris hosted tokenization. This service allows the credit card information fields to be hosted on the Moneris Gateway. From the customer’s perspective, they are still on your website. However, they are actually entering their card number in a protected Moneris environment through the use of iFrames.

The Moneris gateway stores the card number and replaces it with a temporary token which offers increased security when handling card data. A token is a randomly generated string of numbers that represents the card number. The token is not based on the card number and cannot be mathematically reversed to figure out the card number. In this way, the merchant never handles the actual credit card number.

Hosted tokenization gives you a number of benefits. You are not handling sensitive credit card information – this helps reduce the scope of your PCI security requirements. You can fully customize your own payment page. Your customers enjoy a seamless checkout experience since they never leave your website.

Summary

To help you decide which integration solution is best for your business, here is a summary of the three types of integration, along with their advantages and disadvantages.

Now that you have an understanding of the three types of integration, you can decide which one is ideal for your ecommerce website/application and its future success. If you need more information on our solutions or you’re ready to sign up, please contact Client Integrations at ClientIntegrations@moneris.com

Robert Shairulla

Robert is a technical writer in the Product team at Moneris. He writes end-user documentation for a variety of payment solutions, focussing on helping merchants to make the most effective use of our products. He has worked in the technology space for the past 20 years.