# Context

The goal of this architectural decision is to define the boundaries for the payment processing component within our application. This includes how it interacts with other components and external systems, as well as the responsibilities it holds in the system overall.

# Decision

The payment processing component will be isolated as a microservice that communicates with other parts of the application through a well-defined API. It will handle all operations related to payment processing, including but not limited to:
- Payment authorization
- Payment capture
- Payment refunds

This microservice will interact with external payment gateways and handle communication securely, ensuring compliance with payment standards and regulations.

# Alternatives
1. **Monolithic Payment Handling**  
   - Integrating payment processing directly into a monolithic application.  
   - ***Pros:*** Simplicity in deployment and potential performance gains.  
   - ***Cons:*** Difficult to maintain and scale, potential bottlenecks.

2. **Serverless Payment Functions**  
   - Using serverless functions to handle payment events.
   - ***Pros:*** Scalability and reduced management overhead.  
   - ***Cons:*** Complexity in managing state and possibly higher latency.

# Consequences
- A clearly defined payment processing service allows for scalability and flexibility in handling various payment methods.
- The decision to isolate payments into a microservice compels adherence to the principles of microservices architecture, ensuring better maintainability and the ability to adopt alternative payment solutions in the future.
- Potentially increases initial complexity due to inter-service communication needs and requires thorough testing to ensure reliability.