How to Implement Payment Gateway Testing: A Complete Guide

Table of Content

1. What is Payment Gateway Testing?
2. Types of Payment Gateway Testing
3. 6 Steps to Implementing Payment Gateway Testing for Your Product
4. 14 Most Important Test Cases for Payment Gateway Testing
5. FAQs

Long gone are the days when we used to buy things only from physical stores. Online purchasing has become the new standard.

The flexibility and ease of selling and buying products or paying for services have completely changed the way of running and growing businesses.Paying online has become very popular.

Modern payment systems like UPI and NFC have taken online transactions to a whole another level. It’s no wonder that the use of ATMs has seen a drastic decline over the past couple of years.

Payment gateways like CCAvenue, Paytm, and BillDesk are some of the major players as online payment platforms in India.

Their services enable online transactions between banks and online merchants.According to a report published on Market Watch sourced through insights from the Report Ocean research team, the Indian payment gateway market was valued at around INR 73 billion and it is expected to grow at approximately 20.11% CAGR forecasted from the period 2022 to 2027.Just a few clicks and you are done with your transactions.

It’s difficult to imagine situations on the event of a small issue or a minor glitch. Numerous transactions will stop functioning correctly. This could lead to frustration among millions of users.Software testing companies make sure that these payment gateways keep functioning without any problems.

The below content will help you through steps to properly implement payment gateway testing and ensure reliability, security, and performance while you connect the payment gateways for your application or product.

What is Payment Gateway Testing?

Payment gateway testing is implemented to ensure that customers experience hassle-free, smooth, and secure transactions. The payment gateway connects the customer and the merchant for banking transactions.It focuses on encryption, connectivity, and user experience for undergoing transactions. Also, the payment gateway evaluates key components that happen online safely without compromising sensitive data.Advantages of Payment Gateway Testing-

• Verifies the functioning of the payment gateway to safeguard it against potential issues that can compromise transactions and user data.
• Testing end-to-end transaction flow starting from the start to identify errors and bottlenecks.
• Verifies seamless integration between the merchant’s website or application with the payment gateway.
• Testing payment gateway’s compatibility with different devices, operating systems, and browsers to ensure consistent user experience.
• Assessing encryption of payment gateway, compliance, and data handling with security standards to protect sensitive customer information.

Also Read: Testing Peer-to-Peer Platforms: Making Payments Safe and Secure

Types of Payment Gateway Testing

Payment Gateway Testing is a crucial process to secure every online transaction and offer seamless integration. Here are some of the essential payment gateway testing types that you must implement.

• Security Testing - Security Testing is crucial to ensure that the payment gateway has the potential to mitigate security threats such as hacking attempts, data breaches, SQL injections, etc.
• Functional Testing - This is implemented to ensure that every feature and functionality meets the defined requirements. Thus, testers validate basic payment transactions, currency conversions, error handling, refunds, etc.
• Performance Testing - Performance and load testing is essential to evaluate the payment gateway app’s responsiveness and stability under different load conditions and handle peak loads during heavy transaction volumes.
• Integration Testing - In this testing approach, the payment gateway is tested in conjunction with other systems such as banking systems, and e-commerce platforms to determine proper integration.

6 Steps to Implementing Payment Gateway Testing for Your Product

Let’s look at the step-by-step instructions for implementing payment gateway testing.

Step 1 - Requirements Gathering

Therefore, the first step is to gather the requirements and specifications for payment gateway apps. It is essential to understand the objective of the test and the outcome to achieve.

• Understand the requirements and desired outcomes to start payment gateway testing.
• It is also essential to thoroughly check and understand currencies, payment methods, security measures, and other specific industry regulations and standards.

Step 2 - Setting up the Test Environment

Focus on setting up a testing environment that closely resembles the production environment. This step is essential as it allows accurate simulation of real-world scenarios.

• It helps in setting the foundation for testing scope.
• Setting up a test environment includes configuring databases, and servers, and integrating payment gateway apps seamlessly.

Step 3 - Performing Essential Testing Methods

As we have mentioned above, applying the above testing methods i.e. Usability Testing, Integration Testing, Functional Testing, Performance Testing, and Security Testing.Apart from that, QA professionals should also focus on implementing major testing approaches such as usability testing, compliance testing, regression testing, etc.

• Test different scenarios such as failed and successful transactions, and data handling.
• Testing data encryption, cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injection for security testing.
• Evaluating the system’s performance to determine its breaking point to swiftly handle high transaction volumes.

Step 4 - Documentation

Thoroughly document every test case, test scenario, and test result. Thus, documentation enhances communication between QA and development teams with accuracy.

• Documenting test cases is essential in tracking progress and sharing knowledge efficiently.
• Clear documentation improves collaboration and helps in future test maintenance.

Also Read: Why is Documentation Necessary for QA Activities?

Step 5 - Reporting Bugs and Fixing

Reporting issues or bugs found during the testing team enables testers to fix and retest the problems until they are resolved.

• Why is it so important? It is because promptly mitigating bugs prevent them from reaching the production phase which can hamper the company’s reputation and affect customer satisfaction.

Step 6 - Post-Implementation Monitoring

After completing payment gateway testing, and eradicating every bug and issue, the work doesn’t end here. Continuous performance monitoring is the key to successful payment gateway applications.

• It helps you address significant issues to meet user needs.
• It also ensures ongoing stability and identifies new issues which may occur during actual transactions.

Also Read: Benefits of Implementing QAOps

14 Most Important Test Cases for Payment Gateway Testing

Let’s see the 15 most important test cases for payment gateway testing:

1. Test for proper integration with all the payment methods like UPI, debit and credit cards, Net Banking, and digitally enabled wallets.
2. Test that the payment gateway properly selects a default payment method. Additionally, the selection of different payment methods should also function properly.
3. Test to see if the proper notifications appear for actions for successes or failures‍
4. Test for proper error handling. In case something wrong goes, the user must receive a sensible response. These responses should be human-readable. Showing only Error Codes like 401, 404, 403, or 500 can get users confused.
5. Test the proper functioning of all the URLs that are related to a transaction. Also, make sure that the payment gateway returns to the original application or product after a successful transaction.
6. Test that the authentication and authorization processes are properly working as per the payment gateway workflow.#7 - Test for UI to show detailed and clear explanations of all the actions of a transaction.
7. Test that the calculations displayed on the UI are correct and properly structured.
8. Test for the support of the payment gateway according to popular currencies. Another layer of the test can be that the debited amount should be the converted value of the original payment currency.
9. Test for the language support of the payment gateway for different geographical locations and regions
10. Test that the connection used by the payment gateway is secure and encrypted. The payment gateway has to be compliant with the security certificates like SSL/TLS. Also, it must follow the PCI-DSS standards.
11. Test for proper cancellation in case a user decides to cancel an order. The payment gateway must process the request properly and make sure the amount gets properly refunded as per the terms and conditions.
12. Test that the payment gateway is handling the requests well by sending relevant emails/messages/OTP to the users.
13. Test for the duration in which the debited amount gets credited back to the user’s account by the payment gateway.
14. Test for the response times while a request is sent to the server from the payment gateway for all actions.

Also Read: Important Testing Strategies for a Seamless Online Shopping Checkout

Different Types of Payment Gateway Systems

There are mainly two types of payment gateway systems- Shared Payment Gateway and Hosted Payment Gateway. Let’s have a look at them.

Shared Payment Gateway

In the shared payment gateway system, the transaction occurs on the merchant’s website. In this system, customers need to enter the payment details directly on the checkout page and the payment gateway handles the transaction in the background.

• A shared payment gateway allows more control over the branding and user experience.
• It requires the merchant to adhere to strict security standards such as PCI DSS compliance to handle sensitive customer data efficiently.
• The merchant is responsible for updating and maintaining payment gateway integration.
• It allows a seamless payment experience and offers more flexibility to customize the user interface and payment flow.

Hosted Payment Gateway

The hosted payment gateway system redirects the payment gateway page during checkout. Thus, the payment processing occurs on the payment gateway’s secure server.

• Merchant isn’t directly responsible for handling sensitive data as payment details are entered on the secured server.
• It minimizes the risk of data breaches on the merchant’s website.
• It offers limited customization to design checkout pages as its branding is prominent.

However, hosted and shared payment gateway have their significant advantages which are suitable for different types of businesses based on their requirement for security, needs, and controls upon the payment process.

QAble’s Trusted Strategies for Payment Gateway Testing

QAble understands that software bugs can have costly consequences as a leading QA consulting company is India. Proactive QA strategies are curated by our experts to go beyond conventional paths to offer you a toolkit for your unique business requirements.Below are some important strategies for payment gateway testing that you must keep in mind.

• Network Simulation - Simulate different levels of network conditions such as intermittent connectivity, and low and high bandwidth to evaluate how the system performs.
• Response Time and Latency Time Testing - Measure the latency and response time to ensure real-time performance efficiency for time-sensitive transactions through performance and load testing.
• Testing with Real Data - Perform payment gateway testing with real and simulated payment data to cover different scenarios with financial institutions.
• Interrupt Testing Transaction Recovery - Start by interrupting the transactions at different stages to validate the payment gateway’s ability to maintain transaction integrity.

With the above strategies you can easily identify issues to achieve great efficiency in the payment gateway.