As a merchant, you need a special account for processing customer payments - this is called a merchant account. Your payment gateway will take the funds from your customer's account and deposit them into your merchant account. Once the funds are in your merchant account, they will usually be transferred into your business account. Payment gateways are the electronic equivalents of cash registers at your store: they help you accept payments for your products and services, but don't provide the funds for your business. Your merchant account functions as a holding account, where funds from online transactions come first before being deposited into your regular bank account. Some payment providers are both gateway and merchants.