The present and future of business lie in selling products and services online. This is what makes online payments an indispensable part of sustainable growth. Irrespective of the type of business you run, you need to integrate a suitable payment gateway to start accepting payments online.
With the current pace of growth, the Indian payment gateway market is expected to reach US$ 1.71 billion mark. While there are many payment gateway providers available in India, selecting the right payment gateway is of paramount importance.
Payment gateways are also responsible to safeguard consumers’ card details with the help of tokenisation. Hence, it is important to ensure that the integrated payment gateway is working as expected with the help of payment gateway testing.
Let’s dig deeper into various facets to know how to test payment gateway functionality.
What is payment gateway testing?
Payment gateway testing is the process of evaluating various features of a payment gateway before putting it into use to start accepting payments online. The primary purpose of payment gateway testing is to ensure that the chosen payment gateway is secure, reliable, and delivers uninterrupted performance.
At the merchant side, the payment gateway test cases ensure that the entire process from payment debit at the customer’s end to settlements/refunds work seamlessly. On the customer side, the testing process keeps a check on the ease of use with just a couple of clicks/taps and payment security.
Also Read: What is Payment Gateway and How It Works?
Need for payment gateway testing
It would be easy to understand the need for payment gateway testing with an analogy –
Let’s assume you own a local brick-and-mortar shop selling cakes and only accept payments offline. Every time a customer buys cakes from you, you accept the payment in cash or via POS machines to swipe the cards. You get the confirmation that you have received payment while the same amount gets deducted from the customer’s bank account.
Expand the same cake shop to accept orders online, and you will need to ensure whether the underlying payment gateway is working well to settle the payments into your bank account timely as expected.
Hence, payment gateway testing allows the merchants to evaluate the selected payment gateway based on its features, benefits, and suitability for their businesses.
What are the types of payment gateway testing?
There are five main types of payment gateway testing processes that assess the payment gateway from various angles before you can put it into use. These include:
- Functional testing
- Integration testing
- Security testing
- Performance testing
- Settlement testing
Let’s get into the details of each of these types of testing.
| Types of payment gateway testing | Description |
| Functional testing | Covers the functional aspects of a payment gateway like, whether:
|
| Integration testing | Ensures that the payment gateway :
|
| Performance testing | Involves testing whether the payment gateway:
|
| Security testing | Ensures the security of transactions and payment details used by the consumers (also involve tokenisation of customers’ details for enhanced security) |
| Settlement testing | Ensures that the merchant receives the payment into the merchant account as per the chosen settlement cycle (or default) |
19 payment gateway test cases
Conducting the following test cases or scenarios for payment gateway integration is highly recommended:
- Test the integrated payment gateway by using various payment sources – debit/credit cards, net banking, UPI, and digital wallets
- Check for the message that pops up at the user screen after each successful transaction
- Check for return URL, notification URL, and status call to confirm payment status before marking the payment as ‘successful’
- Test for email/message sent to the user as a notification for successful payment
- Assess if the payment gateway returns to the app/website after every successful transaction
- Look at the database entry for every transaction which should be in the right format
- Test the payment flow in case of unsuccessful transactions
- Cross-check the payment flows to ensure encryption and fraud protection
- Test the currency reflected by the gateway as per the user’s country
- Check for the refund amount processing in case of order cancellation (the same amount is to be refunded in such cases)
- Check for the time taken to credit the customer’s account with refunds
- Understand the payment flow in case of cancellation of transaction in the middle at the customer’s end
- Test changing the payment gateway language
- Test the result in case the gateway stops functioning as expected during the transaction
- Check the result of payment process when the session ends
- Check for error pages and security pages during the payment process
- Look at all the messages sent to the user and merchant for successful transactions
- Check if each of the payment sources is selectable
- Verify whether the gateway defaults to the preferred payment mode
All the test cases for payment gateway integration can also be classified into four major categories:
- UI test case
- Functional test case
- Performance test case
- Security test case
Checklist for payment gateway testing
Here is a checklist of the basic parameters to be assessed during the payment gateway testing process:
- Successful transaction notification message
- Unsuccessful transaction notification message
- Language and currency as per the buyer’s location
- Redirection to the app/website after the transaction happens
- Payment modes available
- Notification message after the payment session ends
- Strong password creation
- Confidentiality of API keys
- Multi-factor authentication
Deliver seamless payment experience to your customers with Paytm Payment Gateway
Payment gateway testing is the second step after you select a suitable payment gateway for your business. To get everything you need related to payments with one solution, switch to Paytm Payment Gateway – India’s most trusted payment solution empowering several unicorns in the country.
With Paytm Payment Gateway, you will get:
- Hassle-free onboarding experience
- Easy integration process using robust SDKs and APIs
- 100+ payment sources supported, including debit and credit cards, net banking, UPI, Paytm Wallet, and Paytm Postpaid
- Direct bank integration that ensures a high success rate
- 250 million+ saved cards and 100 million+ saved bank accounts
- Next day settlements
- Lifetime free on UPI & RuPay (50% + transactions)*
Recommended Read: What Makes Paytm the Best Payment Gateway in India?
The bottom line
Payment gateways have become a necessity for businesses to accept payments online. Since the growth of businesses and cyber-crimes follow a parallel trajectory in the current times, it is crucial not to ignore even the minute step related to the payment gateway testing process.
Evaluating payment gateway test cases based on metrics that cover security, user experience, and reliability helps ensure utmost convenience to your target customers.
