Architectural innovations in instant settlement networks and secure payment gateways

The increasing use of digital technologies for settlements calls for review of the available implementations for usability and security to develop a framework for these applications that, when followed, generates gateways apt for secure operations. The intervention of trusted third parties and the currently prevalent insecure methodologies for instant settlements are sources of annoyances and of an open window for attackers, resulting in system or user vulnerabilities. The purpose of this chapter is double: first, it aims at reviewing implementations of recently proposed schemes for use by gateways apt for secure payments; second, it proposes a set of security rules for designing, developing and maintaining such gateways, based on previously identified vulnerabilities.