The language of payments, in plain English.

An authentication layer for online card payments. The shopper is verified by their bank during checkout, usually silently in the background, and liability for fraud on an authenticated transaction shifts from the merchant to the issuer.

The current version of 3D Secure. It passes over a hundred data points from the checkout to the issuer so most transactions can be approved without challenging the shopper, and it works properly on mobile, which the first version did not.

Running two versions of a page or flow against live traffic at the same time to see which performs better. In payments it is most often used on checkout layout, button copy, and which payment methods appear first.

The ABA is the national trade association of commercial banks.

The ABA routing number, also referred to as transit routing number, directs electronic ACH deposits to the proper bank institution.

Winning back shoppers who added items and left without paying, usually with a reminder email or message. A meaningful share of abandonment is caused by the checkout itself, so payment friction is worth ruling out before blaming the shopper.

The card brand logo displayed at a checkout or storefront to show which cards are accepted. Network rules govern how the marks are displayed and prohibit implying acceptance of a brand you do not take.

The issuer-side system that runs the authentication step in 3D Secure. It decides whether to let a transaction through silently or to challenge the cardholder for a code or a biometric.

A unique sequence of numbers assigned to a cardholder account that identifies the issuer and type of financial transaction card.

Fraud where an attacker gains control of a legitimate customer account rather than opening a fake one. It usually starts with reused passwords or a phishing message, and it is harder to catch than stolen card fraud because the account history looks genuine.

A payment that moves directly between two bank accounts with no card in the middle. ACH, wires, and instant rails are all forms of A2A, and the appeal is lower cost and no interchange.

ACH is a form of Electronic Payment. Funds or payments can be transferred electronically in two ways: by wire transfer or through an automated clearinghouse. Wire transfer is an online, real-time payment system designed to handle large-dollar, time-critical payments, mostly between large banks. ACH, in contrast, is designed to be an "electronic check." It is typically used to process high volumes of relatively small-dollar payments for settlement within one or two business days. ACH transactions are settled in a manner similar to the way checks are settled: The clearinghouse takes all ACH files received daily from its member banks, sorts them by the originating bank (the bank where the check was cashed or deposited) and the paying bank (the bank against which the check was drawn), totals the accounts, and credits or debits appropriate accounts accordingly.

An ACH transaction where the sender pushes money out of their account to someone else, such as payroll or a vendor payout. The account holder initiates it, so it carries less return risk than an ACH debit.

An ACH transaction where the receiver pulls money from the payer's account under an authorization the payer gave in advance. Subscription billing and bill pay run on ACH debits.

Any payment moved over the Automated Clearing House network. It settles in batches rather than instantly, costs a fraction of a card transaction, and can be returned by the payer's bank for a set list of reasons.

An ACH transaction sent back by the receiving bank instead of settling, with a code explaining why. Common reasons are insufficient funds (R01), account closed (R02), and unauthorized debit (R10). Returns can arrive days after the original payment.

The transmission of a short packet from the receiving device to the sending device indicates that the data has been received error-free.

The bank or licensed provider that signs up a merchant to accept cards, carries the risk on that merchant's transactions, and settles the funds to them. Also called the acquiring bank or merchant bank.

The work of routing a merchant's transactions to the card networks, receiving the responses, and settling the funds. Some acquirers do this in house, others outsource it to a processor.

A unique number assigned to a transaction as it moves from the acquirer through the network to the issuer. It is the tracking number you give a customer's bank to locate a specific payment or refund.

A correction posted to a merchant account after settlement, either a credit or a debit, to fix an error such as a duplicate batch, a keying mistake, or an interchange misqualification.

Checking a customer or business against negative news coverage as part of onboarding and ongoing monitoring. It catches risk that never reaches an official sanctions or watchlist entry.

Paying partners a commission for customers they send you, tracked by a unique link or code. Attribution rules decide who gets paid when several partners touched the same customer.

A provider that boards many small merchants under its own master merchant account instead of giving each one its own. It makes onboarding near instant and moves the underwriting risk onto the aggregator.

A Chinese digital wallet with roughly a billion users. Merchants selling to Chinese customers usually have to accept it, since card penetration there is low.

Any way to pay that is not a traditional credit or debit card: wallets, bank transfers, buy now pay later, direct debit, cash vouchers. In most markets outside the United States the APMs are the mainstream methods.

American Express is an organization that issues cards and acquires transactions, unlike VISA and MASTERCARD, which are bank associations.

AMEX is an abbreviation for American Express. An organization that issues travel and entertainment cards and acquires transactions.

The value of your subscription revenue over a year, normalized. Monthly recurring revenue multiplied by twelve. It measures the run rate of the book, not cash collected.

The controls a financial business must run to stop criminal proceeds moving through it: verifying who customers are, monitoring transactions for suspicious patterns, and reporting what it finds to the authorities.

The European Union's framework of AML rules, updated through numbered directives. It sets member-state requirements for due diligence, beneficial ownership registers, and reporting.

The interface a payment platform exposes so your own software can create charges, issue refunds, and read settlement data directly, without anyone logging into a dashboard.

Apple's wallet, used to pay in stores by tapping, and online with Face ID or Touch ID. The card number is replaced by a device token, so the merchant never receives the real one.

Fraud committed during onboarding, where the applicant uses false, stolen, or synthetic details to open a merchant account or a payment account. It is caught at underwriting rather than at transaction time.

A code issued by a card issuing bank allowing a sale to be charged against a cardholder's account. Approval means that the amount is within the cardholder's remaining credit limit and the card has not been reported lost or stolen. Approvals are requested via an AUTHORIZATION.

The share of attempted transactions that issuers approve. A few points of approval rate is usually worth more than a few basis points of pricing, and it is the number most merchants under-measure.

All participants in the chain from the retailer to the cardholder have said that they are ready, willing, and able to complete this Sale, Refund or Pre Auth. Note that money does not actually flow out of (or back into) the cardholder's account upon Approval/Authorization. Rather, the transaction is queued for completion during the next batch closure.

The procedure used to determine the responsibility for a chargeback-related dispute between two members.

The fee the card network charges on every transaction, separate from interchange, which goes to the issuer. Assessments are non-negotiable and pass straight through to the merchant.

ATM is an acronym for Automated Teller Machine.

Deciding which marketing touch gets credit for a sale. First touch, last touch, and multi-touch models produce very different answers from the same data.

Auth only is a transaction in which the merchant does not intend to charge the cardholder until a later time, if at all. See PRIOR AUTHORIZATION.

Authentication is the identification of individuals and businesses through the use of digital certificates.

Authorization is the request to charge a cardholder. Reduces the cardholders "Open to Buy" but does not actually charge the account. Authorization must be FORCED in order to charge the account. If not used within a certain time period, the authorization will expire. The time period is determined by issuing bank.

A department that electronically communicates with a merchants request for an authorization on credit card transactions to the cardholders bank and transmits the authorization via voice authorization or electronic point of sale equipment.

The numerical or alphanumerical code sent by the card issuer, given to a sales transaction as verification that the sale has been authorized. The authorization code is always included on the merchant sales draft.

The amount an authorization reserves against a cardholder's available credit before the money actually moves. It falls off if the merchant never captures it, though the timing is set by the issuer, not the merchant.

The percentage of authorization requests that come back approved. Declines caused by bad data, expired cards, or over-aggressive fraud rules all show up here.

A scam where the victim is tricked into sending money themselves, usually by someone impersonating a bank, a supplier, or a colleague. Because the payment is authorized, traditional fraud controls do not stop it.

Total revenue divided by number of orders. It sets how much you can afford to spend acquiring a customer and how much a failed payment actually costs you.

Revenue divided by the number of active customers over a period. Used alongside churn to judge whether a subscription book is growing in quality or only in headcount.

Average ticket is the average size of a merchant's bankcard transaction. It is generally used in pricing decisions and calculations.

A fraud check that compares the numeric parts of the billing address and postal code the customer gives with what the card issuer holds on file. It is standard on keyed and online transactions, and a mismatch is a signal rather than an automatic decline. Transactions submitted without AVS data can qualify for worse interchange.

The United Kingdom's batch payment system for direct debits and direct credits, on a three-day cycle. The British equivalent of ACH.

Confirming that a bank account exists, is open, and belongs to the person claiming it, before you debit or pay out to it. Done by microdeposits, by instant verification through a bank data provider, or by network account checks.

A plastic card widely accepted by merchants under a standard set of rules for authorization, clearing, and settlement of transactions. The most common bank card is a credit card.

Sending funds from a platform to a recipient's bank account, as opposed to collecting from them. The reverse leg of the money flow, and where most payout timing questions come from.

The United States law that requires financial institutions to keep records and file reports that help detect money laundering, including currency transaction reports and suspicious activity reports.

A monthly fee charged by the sponsoring bank for maintaining the merchant account, usually shown on the statement as a service or statement fee.

Licensed banks exposing accounts, cards, and payments through APIs so non-bank companies can offer financial products without holding a charter themselves.

A collection of credit card transactions saved for submitting at one time, usually each day. Merchants who do not have real-time verification systems must submit their transactions manually through a POS terminal. Batch fees are charged to encourage a merchant to submit his or her transactions at one time, rather than throughout the day.

Batch close process is the process of sending a batch to the financial institution for settlement.

A fee incurred for settling each batch from the terminal.

A type of data processing where related transactions are transmitted as a group for processing.

The batch number, also known as the SID or Submission ID. The processor assigns its own number to each settlement submission, and quoting that number is the fastest way for support to locate a specific batch.

Fraud detection based on how a user behaves, such as typing rhythm, mouse movement, navigation speed, and session patterns, rather than only on what they submit. It catches bots and account takeovers that pass every static check.

The natural people who ultimately own or control a business, typically at 25 percent or more. Identifying them is a required part of onboarding a business customer, and shell structures exist mostly to obscure it.

The Business Identifier Code, also called a SWIFT code, that identifies a specific bank in international transfers. Paired with an IBAN to route a cross-border payment.

The text that appears on a cardholder's statement next to your charge. A descriptor that does not obviously match the brand the customer bought from is one of the largest single causes of avoidable chargebacks.

A BIN is the digits of a credit card that identify the ISSUING BANK, sometimes the first six digits.

An attack where a fraudster takes a known card number prefix and generates thousands of candidate numbers, then tests them against a checkout to find the live ones. It shows up as a flood of small declines from similar card numbers.

Verifying someone by a physical trait, usually a fingerprint or a face. Used to satisfy strong authentication rules without making the customer type a code.

Paying by presenting a biometric such as a face or palm rather than a card or a phone. Deployed at scale in a few markets, still niche in most.

The first cryptocurrency, a decentralized digital asset with no issuer. Occasionally accepted for payment, though volatility and settlement time keep it rare in ordinary commerce.

Pricing where every transaction is charged the same rate regardless of card type. Simple to read, and it means low-cost debit subsidizes high-cost rewards cards, with the difference kept by the processor.

A shared ledger maintained across many computers, where entries are appended in linked blocks and are impractical to alter after the fact. The base layer under cryptocurrencies and most tokenized asset projects.

A basis point is equal to 0.0001. It is one one-hundredth of one percent (1/100 x 0.01=0.0001). DISCOUNT rates are expressed as basis points.

The long work of making a name mean something to buyers. It shows up in payments as higher approval rates and fewer disputes, because customers recognise the descriptor on their statement.

A discount rate which includes communication costs as well as transaction fees; also referred to as a flat rate.

A scam where an attacker gets into or convincingly imitates a business email account, then requests a payment or a change of bank details. It targets finance teams and is one of the costliest fraud types by dollar value.

A checkout option that splits a purchase into instalments. The provider pays the merchant up front, takes the credit risk, and charges the merchant a fee higher than card interchange for doing so.

A fee incurred if a merchant cancels prior to the completion of the 3-year contract term.

A capture is the submission of a credit card transaction for processing and settlement. POS terminals and real-time processing software capture transactions to submit to merchant account providers or credit card processors.

The share of authorizations that are actually captured and settled. A gap between authorization and capture usually points to fulfilment problems or expired holds rather than payment problems.

A network service that automatically supplies merchants with new card numbers and expiry dates when a customer's card is reissued. For a subscription business it prevents a wave of involuntary churn every time cards expire.

The business of signing up merchants to accept cards, taking on the credit and fraud risk that goes with them, and settling their funds.

The business of putting cards in the hands of consumers or businesses, carrying the credit line, and paying merchants through the network when those cards are used.

The system that connects issuers and acquirers, sets the rules everyone follows, moves the authorization messages, and sets interchange. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover are the four that matter in the United States.

A stored card the customer has authorized you to charge again later. Whether a later charge counts as customer-initiated or merchant-initiated changes both the authentication requirement and the interchange it earns.

Capturing card data by tampering with the point of acceptance, whether a physical overlay on a terminal or malicious code injected into a checkout page. Chip and tokenized transactions are largely immune, keyed and stripe data are not.

Fraudsters running stolen card numbers through a checkout in small amounts to find which ones still work. It burns your approval rate, triggers network monitoring, and often arrives as a burst of tiny declined orders.

Any transaction where the card is not physically presented: online, in an app, over the phone, or by mail order. It carries higher interchange and puts fraud liability on the merchant unless the payment was authenticated.

A transaction where the card or its digital equivalent is physically presented and read by a terminal. It qualifies for the lowest interchange and, when the chip is used, shifts counterfeit fraud liability away from the merchant.

A cardholder is a person or company who has an active credit card account with which transactions can be processed.

How a terminal confirms the person is entitled to use the card: PIN, signature, a device biometric, or nothing at all below a contactless floor limit.

A shopper adding items and leaving before paying. Some of it is browsing, but a real share is caused by unexpected costs, a forced account creation, or a checkout that does not offer how they want to pay.

Automatically retrying a declined transaction through a different acquirer or route. It can recover genuine revenue, and it can also look like card testing to the networks if it is done without limits.

The amount advanced by a bank teller or ATM to the bankcard holder against the cardholder's line of credit.

The Cardholder Authentication Verification Value, a cryptographic value produced when a transaction is authenticated through 3D Secure. Passing it in the authorization is what earns the liability shift.

A digital form of a country's own currency issued by its central bank. Distinct from cryptocurrency in that it is a direct central bank liability, like cash.

A certification process is a process during which a terminal or software provider meets certain standards by certifier.

The European Union reporting regime that requires payment service providers to report cross-border payment data on merchants receiving more than 25 payments per quarter, to help tax authorities detect VAT fraud.

CFR indicates that a quoted price includes the cost of the goods and transportation charges but not of insurance.

A chain is a series of merchant locations that are managed/owned by the same entity.

A channel is a path along which a POS communication signal is transmitted.

A card whose balance must be paid in full each cycle, with no revolving credit. Common in corporate and travel and entertainment programs.

A fee charged by a merchant services provider against a merchant account for transactions that are successfully challenged by a credit cardholder. After a charge is disputed and adjudicated in the cardholder's favor, the transaction total and chargeback fee are deducted from the merchant account. CIF (cost, insurance, and freight): A term indicating that a quoted price includes the cost of the goods, insurance, and transportation charges.

The flat fee your provider charges for handling a chargeback, levied whether or not you eventually win the dispute. It sits on top of the lost transaction amount.

A network program that puts merchants above a chargeback threshold under supervision, with escalating fines and remediation deadlines. Visa and Mastercard each run their own, and exiting one is much harder than staying out.

Chargebacks as a percentage of transactions, usually measured monthly. The networks watch this against fixed thresholds, and the count matters as much as the dollar value.

A chargeback reason code is a two-digit code identifying the specific reason for a chargeback.

Contesting a chargeback by re-presenting the transaction to the issuer with evidence that it was valid. The evidence you can produce at that moment is decided by what you logged at the time of sale.

The outcome where a chargeback is decided in the merchant's favour and the funds are returned. It is not automatic and it is not fast.

The chargeback rate above which a card network places a merchant into a monitoring program. Thresholds are set by the networks and are lower than most merchants assume.

The share of disputes you contest and win. A low win rate usually means the evidence package is thin, not that the disputes were unwinnable.

A check guarantee is a service which guarantees check payment (up to the limit defined for the account), provided that the merchant follows correct procedures in accepting the check. The service determines whether the check writer has previously written delinquent checks.

The point where a shopper becomes a payer. Every additional field, redirect, and missing payment method costs conversion, which is why checkout design is a revenue decision rather than a design decision.

Systematically improving the payment step to convert more of the traffic that already reached it: fewer fields, the right methods in the right order, saved cards, and honest costs shown early.

Chip card acceptance where the cardholder enters a PIN to verify themselves, rather than signing. Standard across most of the world, less common in the United States.

A card carrying an embedded chip that generates a unique cryptogram for every transaction, making the data useless to copy. Also called EMV.

The Clearing House Interbank Payments System, a private United States network that clears and settles large-value dollar transfers, mostly between banks and mostly cross-border.

The share of customers or revenue lost over a period. Payment failures cause a large part of it in subscription businesses, which means some churn is a billing problem wearing a product problem's clothes.

Class A certified is a certification of a product WITH Help Desk support.

Class B certified is a certification of a product WITHOUT Help Desk support.

Clearing is the process of exchanging financial details between an AQUIRER and an ISSUER to facilitate posting of a cardholder's account and reconciliation of a customer's settlement position.

An intermediary that collects, nets, and settles obligations between banks, so they exchange one balance rather than thousands of individual payments.

Buying online and picking up in a physical location. The payment is card-not-present but the fulfilment evidence is strong, which matters when a dispute arrives.

A payment system that works only within one merchant or network, such as a store gift card. No interchange and no outside acquirer, since the issuer and the acceptor are the same party.

The controls aimed at stopping funds reaching terrorist organizations. Usually paired with anti-money laundering, though the money it targets is often small and legally sourced, which makes it harder to spot.

A card issued to a business rather than a consumer, including corporate, purchasing, and fleet cards. Commercial transactions can earn lower interchange when the merchant supplies Level 2 or Level 3 data.

A Visa dispute rule that lets merchants defeat certain fraud claims by showing prior undisputed transactions from the same customer, matched on data points such as device or delivery address. It is one of the few dispute remedies that works before the chargeback lands.

Running compliance checks through software rather than people: automated screening, evidence collection, and continuous control monitoring. The point is coverage and an audit trail, not headcount reduction.

The exposure created when too much of a portfolio depends on one merchant, one industry, or one bank. It is why an acquirer may decline a business that is individually perfectly sound.

The body of law giving payers rights against unfair or deceptive practices, including refund rights, disclosure requirements, and error resolution. It is why the payer usually wins a close dispute.

Paying by tapping a card or phone against a terminal over NFC. Faster than a chip insert, and above a set floor limit it still requires cardholder verification.

The software a business uses to publish and manage the content of its site. Relevant to payments because the CMS usually decides what the checkout can technically look like.

The share of visitors who complete the action you wanted, normally a purchase. Payment failures and checkout friction sit inside this number and are frequently mistaken for weak demand.

The practice of methodically raising conversion through testing and measurement rather than opinion.

Cookies are small files that are automatically downloaded from a web server to the computer of someone browsing a website. Information stored in cookies can then be accessed any time that computer returns to the site. Cookies allow websites to "personalize" their appearance by identifying visitors, storing passwords, tracking preferences, and other possibilities.

The system of record that holds accounts, balances, and transactions at a bank. Everything customer-facing eventually writes to it.

What it costs in marketing spend to win one paying customer. Compared against lifetime value to judge whether growth is profitable.

What an advertiser pays for one click on an ad.

A card manufactured from stolen data to imitate a real one. Chip acceptance largely killed it in person, which pushed that fraud online.

Commonly referred to as a "Refund," this is a transaction that transfers money from the merchant to the cardholder's account.

A bankcard giving the person it is issued to the ability to present it as payment to a merchant, with the cardholder reimbursing the issuer for the amount of the sale.

Merchant services providers that handle the details of processing credit card transactions between merchants, issuing banks, and merchant account providers. Website operators usually must first establish their own merchant account before contracting for credit card processing services.

The maximum amount the cardholder may owe an issuer on the card.

A payment where the merchant and the cardholder are in different countries. It carries extra network fees, worse approval rates, and often a currency conversion.

Offering a related product alongside the one being bought. At checkout it lifts order value, and it also adds a step that can cost you the sale if it is placed badly.

A digital asset recorded on a blockchain rather than issued by a state. Used in commerce mainly through processors that convert it to fiat instantly, so the merchant carries no price risk.

A method used to attach styles such as specific fonts, colors, and spacing to HTML documents. Because they "cascade," some elements take precedence over others.

A report United States financial institutions must file for cash transactions above 10,000 dollars in a day. Deliberately splitting payments to stay under the threshold is itself a crime.

The full cost of winning a new customer, including sales and marketing, not just media spend.

Verifying who a customer is, understanding what they do, and judging the risk they present before doing business with them, then keeping that picture current.

The minimum identity verification a United States financial institution must perform when opening an account: name, date of birth, address, and an identification number, collected and verified.

The whole path from first contact to repeat purchase. Payments appear at the end of it, which is where the money is either collected or lost.

The total profit expected from a customer over the whole relationship. It is the ceiling on what acquiring one is worth.

Keeping existing customers paying. Cheaper than acquisition, and in subscription businesses it is mostly a function of product value plus billing that does not fail.

How happy customers report being, usually captured by survey. A leading indicator of both churn and dispute volume.

A transaction the cardholder is actively present for and triggers themselves. It can be authenticated in the moment, unlike a merchant-initiated one.

A CVC is a unique encrypted 3-digit value that is encoded in the magnetic stripe and printed on the back of a MasterCard. It is used as an additional means of cardholder validation during the authorization or referral process.

The three or four digit code printed on a card but not stored in the magnetic stripe or chip. Asking for it proves the card is physically in hand, which is why it may never be stored after authorization.

CVV2 is a unique encrypted 3-digit value that is encoded in the magnetic stripe and printed on the back of a Visa Card. It is used as an additional means of Cardholder verification during the authorization or referral process.

An incident where payment or personal data is accessed by someone who should not have it. For a merchant it triggers notification duties, network forensics, and potentially the fines that follow a PCI failure.

The scrambling of information sent over the Internet. Data encryption ensures that only the intended recipient has the ability to read and understand the information.

The rules governing how personal data may be collected, used, stored, and shared, and the rights people hold over their own. GDPR and state privacy laws are the operative ones for most merchants.

Refers to the specific name and location of the merchant establishment where credit card purchases were made.

A document that accompanies nearly all commercial shipments that declares the shipment's contents are licensed for export to a particular destination. The anti-diversion clause in the DCS precludes the diversion of the shipment to any other destination.

A charge to the customers bankcard account.

A financial instrument used by consumers in place of cash. Unlike a credit card, debit card purchases are deducted automatically from the cardholder's account, like a check. Visa and MasterCard now offer debit cards through banks and other financial institutions. A PIN (Personal Identification Number) required for use.

Financial services built on public blockchains and executed by smart contracts rather than by an institution. No intermediary, and correspondingly no one to call when it goes wrong.

Either the processing network or the cardholder's bank has refused to complete a sale, refund, or pre-auth. The cardholder's account balance was not changed. The processor passes back whatever reason it receives, and the reasons banks give tend to be vague, because the underlying issue is between the cardholder and their own bank.

The reason an issuer gives for refusing an authorization. It matters operationally because some codes are safe to retry and others must never be retried, and treating them the same is how merchants end up flagged for card testing.

Money collected for goods or services not yet delivered. It is a liability until it is earned, which is why annual subscriptions do not become revenue on the day they are paid.

When a merchant closes a batch and sends the transactions to the host computer for settlement. Compare to RELEASE. Batches should be closed on a daily basis to ensure the lowest discount rates.

Government-backed protection of deposits held at an insured institution, up to a set limit. In the United States that is the FDIC, and pass-through insurance is what extends it to funds held for end users in a custodial account.

An identifier built from the characteristics of a device and browser, used to recognise a returning visitor or spot one device attempting hundreds of orders. Works without a login and without a cookie.

Banking delivered entirely through software rather than branches. The account may still sit at a chartered bank behind the interface.

A digital certificate is online identification that authenticates a consumer, merchant, and financial institution. Digital certificates are used during SET transactions.

A consumer account set up to allow ecommerce transactions through a particular payment system. The consumer establishes an account with the provider, who issues credentials, and those credentials can then be used to pay at any site supporting that system.

A recurring pull from a payer's bank account under a mandate they signed in advance. The European and United Kingdom equivalent of an ACH debit, with stronger refund rights for the payer.

Selling straight to the end customer instead of through retailers or distributors. It gives the brand the customer relationship and the payment data, and hands it the fraud and dispute exposure that used to sit with the retailer.

Paying money out to sellers, contractors, or customers. The outbound side of a platform's money movement, and usually where the speed expectations are hardest to meet.

The percentage a merchant pays on each card transaction to the provider handling it. It covers interchange, network fees, and the provider's margin, and the rate a given merchant pays depends on card type, channel, and how the transaction is submitted.

A cardholder's formal challenge to a transaction, raised with their bank. It becomes a chargeback once the issuer acts on it, and the merchant's opportunity to resolve it directly is usually gone by then.

The operational discipline of preventing, tracking, and contesting disputes: clear descriptors, prompt refunds, alert programs, and an evidence package assembled from data captured at the time of sale.

The 2010 United States law passed after the financial crisis. For payments its most-felt piece is the Durbin Amendment, which capped debit interchange for large issuers.

A domain is the address of a particular location on the internet. A domain contains the files that make up the pages published under that address, and domain names are associated with IP addresses.

Recording every movement of money twice, as a debit in one account and a credit in another, so the books always balance. The model every payment ledger is built on.

Offering a cheaper plan to a customer who is about to cancel or refuses the main offer. It reduces churn at the cost of average revenue per user.

Selling goods that a third party ships directly to the buyer, so the merchant never holds inventory. Underwriters treat it as elevated risk because delivery times are long and the merchant does not control fulfilment.

A card flow where authorization and clearing are two separate messages, which is what allows a merchant to capture less than they authorized, or later. The standard model for credit card acceptance.

Displaying two prices, one for cash and one for card, so the card cost is visible at the point of decision. Distinct from a surcharge in how it is disclosed, and the distinction is what keeps it compliant in states that restrict surcharging.

The sequence of retries and reminders a subscription business runs when a payment fails. Well-built dunning recovers a large share of failed renewals; badly built dunning annoys good customers and gets cards blocked.

The Dodd-Frank provision that capped debit card interchange for issuers above 10 billion dollars in assets and required at least two unaffiliated networks on every debit card.

Offering a foreign cardholder the choice to be charged in their home currency at the point of sale. The rate is set by the DCC provider, so it must be presented as a genuine choice, not a default.

A billing descriptor that changes per transaction to name the specific product, site, or sub-merchant. Used by platforms so the statement line matches what the customer thinks they bought.

A strong authentication requirement that ties the authentication code to the specific amount and payee, so a captured code cannot be reused for a different payment.

Changing price in response to demand, timing, or customer segment. Legal in most contexts, and heavily constrained where it touches protected characteristics.

An E-Check is the electronic equivalent of a paper check.

E-commerce is the processing of economic transactions, such as buying and selling, through electronic communication. E-commerce often refers to transactions occurring on the Internet, such as credit card purchases at websites. See also Internet commerce.

Monetary value stored electronically and issued against funds received, redeemable at face value. The regulatory category most wallets and prepaid balances fall into outside the United States.

A firm licensed to issue electronic money and hold customer funds in safeguarded accounts. It is not a bank: the funds are protected by segregation rules rather than deposit insurance.

A charge for leaving a processing contract before its term ends. A standard feature of long-form merchant agreements and one of the main reasons to read the term length before signing.

A value passed in an online authorization showing whether and how the transaction was authenticated. It is what tells the issuer that a liability shift applies.

The software running an online store: catalogue, cart, and checkout. It usually determines which payment integrations are even available to the merchant.

EDC is the use of a POS terminal for validating and submitting credit card transactions to a merchant account provider or other credit card processor. In online credit card processing, software takes the place of the POS terminal.

EDI is a global computer network, separate from the Internet, used to handle financial transactions between banks and other institutions.

Total processing cost divided by total volume, expressed as a percentage. The only pricing number that is comparable across providers, because it includes every fee rather than the headline one.

EFS are financial services that are provided electronically via personal computers, ATM machines, etc.

EFT is a method of transferring money from one bank account to another using a variety of electronic methods such as bank wire transfer, federal wire transfer, or international wire transfer. It is the paperless act of transmitting money through a computer network. Usually does not refer to CHECK GUARANTEE.

A VISA classification level that is charged to the merchant when a credit card is not present, swipe not read, card number is manually key entered.

Electronic banking is a form of banking where funds are transferred via an exchange of electronic signals between financial institutions instead of exchanging cash or checks.

The system delivering United States government benefits by card. Acceptance requires separate authorization and is restricted to eligible goods.

Electronic Draft Capture is a system in which each transaction is routed to the host computer for processing and storage. The stored transactions are used to create settlement files and transactions reports.

Triggered email sent on customer behaviour rather than on a calendar. In payments it does the work of dunning, receipts, and renewal notices.

Financial products offered inside a non-financial product, such as a marketplace providing accounts, cards, or lending to its sellers. The provider is licensed, the brand in front of the customer is not.

Payment acceptance built directly into a software product so the user never leaves it. The software company owns the experience and usually shares in the economics.

Embossing is the raised characters that are printed on all credit cards. Embossing provides the cardholders information and allows the card to be imprinted.

A firm that provides exporting services to other firms. The export management firm will either take title to act as an intermediary merchant or provide export management services in exchange for fees or a commission.

The global chip card standard, named for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa. Each transaction produces a one-time cryptogram, which is why cloning a chip card is not practical.

Encryption is the process of encoding a PIN pad with the processor's configuration and key injection for the purpose of accepting debit cards. Most common formats are DUKPT (Derived Unique Key Per Transaction) and Masterkey (MasterCard's debit key encryption format). "The Debit Process" - The transformation of data for the purpose of privacy into an unreadable format until reformatted with a decryption key.

Encrypting data at the point it is captured and decrypting it only at its destination, so nothing in between can read it, including the merchant's own systems.

The deeper investigation applied to higher-risk customers: source of funds, ownership structure, expected activity, and more frequent review. Required for politically exposed persons and high-risk industries.

The monthly or one-time charge for terminals and card readers. Leases in particular can outlast the hardware by years, so buy-versus-lease is worth checking.

A Mastercard network alert that notifies a merchant of a dispute or confirmed fraud before it becomes a chargeback, giving a short window to refund and stop it counting against the chargeback rate.

The common currency of the euro area, introduced in 1999 and now used by twenty member states of the European Union. It replaced national currencies such as the German mark, the French franc, and the Italian lira.

The body of EU rules governing payments, principally PSD2 and its successors, covering authentication, account access, transparency, and settlement times.

The tier of network monitoring for merchants well above threshold, carrying monthly fines, mandatory remediation, and the real possibility of losing acceptance.

Additional revenue from existing customers through upgrades, seats, or usage. Enough of it can grow a book even while customers are leaving.

The date embossed on a bankcard.

Permission granted to ship a product to a foreign recipient. In the United States, export licenses are either general licenses or IVLs (individual validated licenses).

A facsimile draft is a paper record that is provided to an acquirer as a substitute for an actual sales draft.

The purchase of accounts receivable in exchange for immediate payment at a discount. In card processing the term also describes a provider putting another business's transactions through its own merchant account. That practice breaches card network rules and is unlawful in many jurisdictions.

Automatically switching to a backup system or route when the primary one fails, so payments keep processing through an outage.

The United States law giving cardholders the right to dispute billing errors and withhold payment while they are investigated. The legal foundation under the modern chargeback.

A legitimate transaction wrongly blocked by a fraud rule. For most merchants the revenue lost to false positives is larger than the fraud losses the rules prevent.

The United Kingdom's instant payment rail, moving funds between accounts in seconds, at any hour.

The federal program that protects consumers by providing insurance for bank deposits in the event that a bank becomes insolvent. All funds from PPI merchant accounts, including credit, debit (ATM) and EFT transactions are FDIC insured throughout the entire transaction process from authorization and settlement through ACH deposit into the merchant's bank account.

The United States Federal Reserve's instant payment service, launched 2023. Settles in seconds, around the clock, with immediate finality, which also means no reversals.

The Federal Reserve's real-time gross settlement system for large-value dollar transfers. Same-day, final, and irrevocable.

Government-issued money that is not backed by a commodity. Dollars, euros, pounds.

The intergovernmental body that sets global anti-money-laundering standards and publishes the lists of jurisdictions under increased monitoring.

The United Kingdom regulator for financial services conduct, including payment and e-money firms.

Extending usable financial services to people who have been excluded from them, whether by cost, documentation requirements, or geography.

Any organization that provides an avenue to move, invests, lend or provide financial services. This would include federal & state savings banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions and commercial banks.

A financial transaction is a transaction from the acquirer to the card issuer containing all the necessary data elements for authorization, posting and reconciliation.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the United States Treasury bureau that collects suspicious activity and currency transaction reports and administers money services business registration.

Fraud committed by the genuine account holder, such as disputing a transaction they actually made. It is invisible to fraud tools because every signal is legitimate.

One published rate for every transaction, with the processor absorbing the variation in interchange. Predictable, simple, and usually more expensive at volume than interchange-plus.

The dollar amount an acquirer sets in accordance with Visa/MasterCard guidelines. The merchant must obtain an authorization for all transactions above the floor limit.

Submitting a transaction for settlement using an authorization code obtained outside the normal flow, typically by phone. Legitimate in narrow cases and a common source of unrecoverable chargebacks.

The entry of a transaction after a referral message is displayed on the POS terminal or network interruption of service that allows the merchant to enter a transaction and the approval code as a forced entry with an authorization code.

The rate at which one currency converts to another. In payments the rate applied is usually the network rate plus a margin, and the margin is the part worth negotiating.

Obtaining money or goods by deception. In payments it splits into third-party fraud, where a stranger uses stolen credentials, and first-party fraud, where the genuine customer is the one lying.

Identifying fraudulent transactions as or after they happen, through rules, models, and manual review.

Watching transaction patterns continuously for signs of fraud, at the merchant, the processor, and the network level. Networks run their own programs with thresholds and penalties of their own.

Stopping fraud before it succeeds, through authentication, screening, velocity limits, and data hygiene. Distinct from detection, which happens after the attempt.

Assigning a numeric risk score to a transaction from many signals, so the borderline cases can be routed to review rather than approved or declined outright.

Giving access before charging. A zero-dollar authorization at signup confirms the card is valid, which is what prevents a wave of failures on the first real charge.

A freight forwarder is a firm that handles export shipments for other firms.

A checkout that authenticates and completes without the customer doing extra work. Under 3DS2 most authentications are frictionless, and the challenge is reserved for the risky minority.

A dispute filed by a real customer over a real purchase, whether from confusion, buyer's remorse, or a family member's spending. It is the largest chargeback category for most merchants and it is defeated with evidence, not fraud tools.

A real operating business used to launder illicit funds through legitimate-looking revenue. Harder to detect than a shell because there is genuine activity to point at.

The user interface that appears on a web page and allows a visitor to the website to interact with dynamic features, including databases, shopping cart programs, and online purchase processing software.

FTP is a set of standard codes for transferring files over the Internet. FTP is usually used for retrieving large files or files that cannot be displayed through a browser. Windows FTP and Fetch are examples of FTP software.

The acquirer provides the issuing bank with an original sales draft or a legible copy.

The payment a merchant receives for his settled and captured deposits.

An application that accepts transactions from online merchant storefronts and routes them to a financial institution's processing system.

The per-transaction or monthly fee for the gateway that transmits transactions, separate from the processing rate itself.

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, governing personal data of people in the EU regardless of where the company sits. Requires a lawful basis to process, honours access and deletion rights, and carries revenue-based fines.

A general license is a declaration by the U.S. Bureau of Export Administration that permits the open export of certain non-strategic goods and services to designated countries. Exporters of these goods need not acquire an IVL (Individual Validated License).

A prepaid balance redeemable with a specific merchant or group. Closed loop, so no interchange, and a favourite instrument of scammers precisely because the funds are irreversible.

Accepting and paying out across multiple countries, currencies, and methods. The hard parts are local acquiring, local method coverage, and settlement, not the checkout.

Good faith is an attempt to resolve a dispute regarding a violation of Visa/MasterCard rules and regulations via written correspondence/documentation.

Google's wallet for in-store, in-app, and online payments, using a device token in place of the card number.

A gross deposit is the submission of the total dollar amount of bankcard credit and sales drafts for payment.

Settling the full transaction amount to the merchant and billing the fees separately, rather than netting them out. It makes reconciliation far cleaner.

The total value of goods sold through a marketplace before fees, refunds, and cancellations. It measures throughput, not revenue, and is regularly quoted as though it were the latter.

The total value of payments processed over a period. The headline number for a payments business.

A decline that must not be retried, such as a stolen card, a closed account, or a pickup instruction. Retrying one is a fast route to being flagged by the network.

A checkout where the interface is fully custom and the payment logic runs through APIs behind it. Total design control, and total responsibility for the compliance scope that comes with it.

Separating the storefront from the commerce engine so each can be changed independently. The checkout becomes an API call, which is freedom and PCI responsibility in equal measure.

Headquarters are the main office of a business.

A merchant an acquirer treats as elevated risk because of industry, chargeback history, ticket size, or delivery timeline. It means higher rates, reserves, and fewer willing banks, not that the business is illegitimate.

A hologram is a laser photograph of an image to create a three dimensional image. Primarily used within the bankcard industry as an anti-fraud/counterfeit deterrent.

The network rule requiring a merchant that accepts a brand to accept all consumer cards of that brand, rather than picking and choosing issuers.

A host capture is a type of transaction capture in which transaction information is stored in the processor's host computer and not at the merchant's POS system. Compare to Terminal Capture. Settlement occurs at the host computer and is automatic: no merchant initiation is required.

A payment page served by the provider rather than the merchant, so card data never touches the merchant's systems. It is the fastest way to shrink PCI scope, at the cost of some design control.

A hot card is a bankcard that has been used excessively. It is usually an indication that the card has either been stolen or counterfeit.

HTML is a set of codes that determines how a web page will appear, including graphics, links, and text characteristics. Other code sets that build on HTML include dHTML, VRML, and XML.

HTTP secured by TLS, so traffic between browser and server is encrypted. Mandatory anywhere card data is entered, and now effectively mandatory everywhere.

The International Bank Account Number, the standard account identifier for cross-border payments in Europe and much of the world.

Designing an API so that repeating the same request produces the same result rather than a second charge. The mechanism that makes retries safe over an unreliable network.

Using someone else's identity, real or fabricated, to obtain payment credentials or open accounts.

Capturing the card details at the point of sale, either electronically by reading the card or manually by taking a physical impression of it. One or the other is required on a card-present transaction to evidence that the card was there.

An imprinter is a piece of equipment used by merchants to imprint embossed information off of a bankcard onto a sales draft.

Paying inside a mobile app. On iOS and Android, digital goods generally must use the platform's own billing and its commission, while physical goods and services may use an ordinary processor.

Verifying a bank account immediately by having the customer authenticate with their bank, instead of waiting days for microdeposits. Higher completion, and it returns balance and ownership data as well.

Payments built into the business software a merchant already uses, so transactions reconcile against invoices and orders without exporting anything.

A software company that embeds payments into its product for its customers, usually earning a share of the processing revenue.

Canada's domestic debit and interbank transfer network. Interac e-Transfer is the standard way Canadians send money between accounts.

An interchange is a standard format for sharing or transferring data electronically between parties that do not share a common application. Usually a format that is platform-independent is agreed upon as a standard. Examples of common interchange formats include EDI (electronic data interchange), ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), and GIF (graphics interchange format). Interchange is the operating system of Visa/MasterCard for authorization, settlement, capture and passing through of interchange and other fees in addition to monetary and non -monetary information regarding bankcard transaction/processes.

Servicing fees paid by acquirers to issuers for transaction costs. Visa/MasterCard establishes and periodically reviews interchange rates.

Making sure each transaction qualifies for the lowest interchange it is entitled to, by passing complete data, settling on time, and supplying Level 2 and Level 3 fields on commercial cards.

Pricing that passes interchange and network fees through at cost and adds a stated markup. The transparent model, and normally the cheapest once volume is meaningful.

Internet commerce is a broad term covering all commercial transactional activities on the Internet. Internet commerce can range from vendors selling software from a web storefront (website) to large corporate procurement systems using an Internet-based VPN (virtual private network) to deal with trading partners. Internet commerce is not synonymous with e-commerce, which covers all electronic commercial activities.

Tracking stock across channels. It touches payments because overselling turns into refunds and disputes.

Payment that happens in the background with no explicit checkout step, as in a ride-hailing app or an autonomous store. The authorization still occurs, the customer just never sees it.

Subscribers lost because a payment failed rather than because they chose to leave. Expired cards, insufficient funds, and issuer declines cause most of it, and account updater plus smart retries recover much of it.

The United States information return reporting payment card and third-party network transactions to the IRS. Platforms and processors must issue it to payees who cross the reporting threshold.

An independent contractor used to broker accounts for merchant processing and or servicing.

A firm or organization that offers to process online credit card transactions, usually in exchange for transaction fees or a percentage of sales. Merchants must generally establish a merchant account before contracting for ISO services, although some ISOs claim not to separate merchant accounts. See also factoring.

The messaging standard replacing older payment formats, carrying far richer structured data with each payment. Adopted by the major clearing systems, which is why remittance data is finally travelling with the money.

The international standard for information security management systems. Certification says an organisation runs a defined, audited security program.

A family of international standards for quality management systems, published by the International Organization for Standardization. Certification says an organisation runs a documented, audited quality process, not that any particular product is good.

An ISO is a firm that provides access to the Internet including web browsing and e-mail. ISPs often offer connections that can be accessed by dialing a telephone number through your computer's modem.

The bank that gives a cardholder their card, carries the credit line or the deposit account behind it, and decides whether to approve each authorization.

The platform that runs authorization decisions, card controls, and ledgering on behalf of an issuer. The engine under most modern card programs.

An VL is a written declaration by the US. Department of Commerce granting permission to export specified products to a specified foreign recipient. See also general license.

Issuers of the JCB bankcard.

Kiting is a scam in which a merchant submits a sales draft from his or her personal account(s) to get cash advances from their business.

Verifying a business customer: legal existence, ownership, control, and what it actually does. The commercial counterpart to KYC and the core of merchant onboarding.

Verifying an individual customer's identity and assessing their risk before and during the relationship.

Screening and monitoring staff who have access to funds or sensitive systems, to manage insider risk.

A data network limited to a small geographic area, usually a single building or campus. It is privately owned and does not use common carrier circuits, though it can connect to other networks through gateways.

The final leg of shipping to the customer's door. Delivery confirmation from this leg is the evidence that wins item-not-received disputes.

The authoritative record of balances and movements. In payments, the ledger, not the bank statement, is what tells you who is owed what at any moment.

Passing extra data with commercial card transactions, such as tax amount, customer code, and line-item detail. Doing it earns materially lower interchange on business and government cards.

The transfer of fraud liability from merchant to issuer when a transaction is properly authenticated or chip-read. It is the entire commercial argument for 3D Secure and EMV.

A contractual amount payable on early termination, sometimes calculated from projected remaining revenue rather than a flat fee. Worth pricing before signing a long processing term.

Confirming that a biometric is being presented by a live person rather than a photo, video, or mask. The defence against deepfake-assisted onboarding fraud.

Processing a transaction through an acquirer in the cardholder's own country. It lifts approval rates significantly and avoids cross-border fees.

A payment method dominant in one market but rare elsewhere, such as iDEAL in the Netherlands or Pix in Brazil. Selling into those markets without them costs most of the conversion.

A scheme rewarding repeat purchase. Increasingly settled through the payment credential itself, so the card becomes the loyalty identifier.

The checksum that validates a card number's format. It catches typos instantly, and it proves nothing about whether the card exists or has funds.

A stripe on the back of a bankcard that contains magnetically encoded cardholder account information. The name of the cardholder is stored on Track I and the account number and expiration date is stored on Track II.

A manual entry is when credit card information is entered via terminal keypad or keyboard instead of swiping the card through a card reader.

A human decision on a transaction a fraud system could not settle automatically. Effective and expensive, so the queue size is a cost line.

A MAP is a bank or other institution that hosts merchant accounts and processes online credit card transactions. The term is also often used broadly to include any credit card processing service, including ISOs.

A platform where third-party sellers transact with buyers. It has to decide whether it is the merchant of record or is facilitating payments to sellers, and that choice drives its licensing, tax, and liability position.

The entity whose merchant account sub-merchants transact under. It carries the risk for everything its sub-merchants do.

MasterCard is an association of banks that governs the issuing and acquiring of MasterCard credit card transactions and Maestro debit transactions.

Mastercard's Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants, the shared database of merchants terminated by an acquirer and why. Being listed makes getting a new merchant account extremely difficult for five years.

An MCC is a merchant classification code that identifies the merchant by business type and/or processing type, authorization and settlement.

A member is a financial institution that is a member of VISA USA and or MasterCard International. A member licensed to issue cards to cardholders and to accept merchant sales receipts.

A bank account established by a merchant to receive the proceeds of credit card purchases. By establishing a merchant account, the merchant bank agrees to pay the merchant for valid credit card purchases in exchange for the right to collect on the debt owed by the consumer.

Merchant accounts are broadly split by whether the card is present. A retail account is approved for use in a physical location where the cardholder and the card are both there, and it is the lower-risk case. A card-not-present account covers mail order, telephone order, and online sales, where the merchant cannot see the card or the cardholder, and it normally carries higher rates because chargeback and fraud exposure is greater.

A merchant agreement is a written contract between the merchant and the acquirer regarding their rights, rates, and responsibilities.

The all-in percentage a merchant pays on a transaction, covering interchange, network fees, and the provider's margin.

The entity legally responsible for a transaction: it holds the merchant account, appears on the statement, and owns the tax, refund, and chargeback liability. Sellers using an MoR give up margin and shed that liability.

Getting a merchant from application to accepting payments: identity and business verification, underwriting, risk scoring, and account setup. How fast and how thorough it is defines the whole business model.

A charge the merchant triggers without the cardholder present, such as a subscription renewal or a delayed charge. It must be flagged as such and must reference the original agreement, or issuers decline it.

Charging by measured consumption rather than a fixed fee. The billing system has to hold usage records that reconcile to the invoice, because that record is the dispute evidence.

Characters (i.e. account information) printed on a check with ink containing particles of a magnetic material.

Verifying a bank account by sending one or two small amounts and asking the owner to confirm them. Reliable, cheap, and slow enough that many customers never come back to finish.

A payment small enough that ordinary card economics do not work on it, from a few cents down to fractions of one. Handled by aggregating many small charges into one settlement, or by a stored balance the customer tops up.

An MID is a unique number that identifies a merchant to a processing company.

A broad term that describes a transaction that did not interchange at the best rate because it was entered manually or was not settled in a timely manner.

An example of and MID/TID is a grocery store typically has a single MID but has a distinct TID for each cash register terminal. By sorting all of that MID's traffic by TID, management can see which register contributed which set of transactions. Most web retailers have just one terminal, so all traffic is associated with a single MID/TID. However, a merchant may have more than one account associated with the same MID/TID. In that event, you'll find that batches often contain transactions from more than one account.

A charge applied when a merchant's processing volume in a period falls below the minimum set in their agreement, billed as the difference between what they generated and that minimum.

Turning a phone or tablet into a card terminal with an attached reader or, increasingly, with the phone's own NFC hardware.

A phone-based store of payment credentials, tokenized so the merchant never sees the real card number.

Assembling financial products from discrete components, such as accounts from one provider and cards from another, rather than buying a single stack.

Moving criminal proceeds through legitimate channels to disguise their origin, classically in three stages: placement, layering, and integration.

A person who moves illicit funds through their own account, sometimes knowingly, often recruited under a false job offer. A common pattern in account-opening fraud.

The state-by-state United States licence required to move money on behalf of others. Getting licensed across every state takes years and substantial capital, which is why most companies partner with a licensed provider instead.

A recurring account charge from a processor, sometimes for a statement, a gateway, or simply for the account itself. Small individually, and the reason a headline rate rarely equals the effective rate.

The monthly minimum is the amount in fees and percentages charged by a merchant services provider in a given month. If account activity does not generate the monthly minimum, the account holder must make up the difference.

Normalized monthly subscription revenue. The core operating metric of a subscription business, and the number involuntary churn quietly erodes.

The account type used by mail order and telephone order businesses, and by anyone else taking payment where the merchant cannot see the card or the cardholder. It lets a merchant accept a card without the cardholder's signature, and because the risk of chargebacks and fraud is greater it usually carries higher rates than a retail account. Also called a card-not-present account.

The MOTO discount rate is charged by the merchant account provider for credit card transactions in which the actual credit card was not available to the merchant. MOTO discount rates are generally higher than swipe discount rates to account for the increased chance of fraud or nonpayment.

A firm certified by an acquiring bank to provide card acceptance, or to provide the services around processing card sales. Some MSPs place each client in their own merchant account and others do not, and a provider that will not put a merchant in their own account may be factoring, which the card networks prohibit.

Pricing, charging, and settling in more than one currency. Showing local prices lifts conversion; settling locally avoids conversion cost entirely.

Requiring two or more independent factors to authenticate: something known, something held, something inherent. SMS codes count but are the weakest form, being vulnerable to SIM swaps.

The organisation that writes and enforces the ACH network rules in the United States, including return timeframes, authorization requirements, and return-rate thresholds.

Checking a customer's name against sanctions lists, politically exposed person lists, and watchlists at onboarding and continuously afterwards.

Charging a customer unless they actively decline, as with a trial that converts to a paid plan. Legal with clear disclosure and easy cancellation, and heavily enforced against where those are missing.

A digital-only bank brand. Some hold their own charter; most sit on a partner bank's, which determines where the deposits legally live.

Payment to the merchant for sales drafts less credits minus the specified discount fee.

A survey metric based on how likely customers are to recommend you, scored from minus 100 to 100.

Net revenue is discount income less interchange expenses.

Revenue from an existing cohort a year later, including expansion and after churn. Above 100 percent means the book grows without a single new customer.

Net settlement is the settlement through an actual transfer of funds.

A card number replacement issued by the card network itself, tied to a merchant and automatically updated when the underlying card is reissued. It lifts approval rates and removes the stored card number as a breach target.

Settlement of a merchant's takings to their bank account on the next business day. The cutoff time is the part that decides whether it actually happens.

Near Field Communication, the short-range radio behind contactless cards and phone wallets. The range is a few centimetres, which is itself a security control.

A charge processed by a hotel or motel when a cardholder fails to arrive at a certain time or fails to cancel a guaranteed reservation with a certain timeframe. The wording "no show" must be written on the signature line of the sales draft.

Non face-to-face transactions are any transactions where the card is not present (CNP) at the time of the sale.

Anon-bank company that deals directly with the cardholder i.e.: American Express, Diners, Discover, Carte Blanche and JCB.

A non-qualified rate is a fee that applies to all retail, MOTO, internet items without an AVS match, AVS Request, delayed or incomplete transactions/batches/batch settlements for foreign cards, business cards and or corporate cards.

A notification is a message where the sender notifies the receiver of an activity taken, requiring no approval or response.

The United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions programs. Screening against its lists is mandatory, and violations carry strict liability.

Treating in-store, online, and in-app as one payment estate, so a customer can buy in one channel and return in another, and the merchant sees one view of them.

A transaction where the same institution is both issuer and acquirer. It can be settled internally without interchange.

Completing a purchase with a stored credential and no re-entry of details. The single largest conversion lever on a repeat-purchase checkout.

Continuing to review customer activity and screening after onboarding, because risk changes and one-time verification goes stale.

A commerce-enabled website available on a public network, such as the Internet, that offers goods and services for sale. An online storefront is the equivalent of a store or place of business that a customer would visit to purchase goods and services.

Regulated access to bank account data and payment initiation, with the customer's consent, through APIs. It is what makes account-to-account payments and instant verification possible.

The extension of open banking beyond current accounts to investments, pensions, insurance, and lending data.

A payment product usable anywhere its network is accepted, rather than at a single merchant. An ordinary Visa or Mastercard prepaid card is open loop.

Open to Buy is the amount of credit available at a given time ona card holder's account.

A small add-on offered on the checkout page itself. It raises order value without adding a step, unlike an upsell after payment.

The system tracking orders from placement through fulfilment and returns. Its records are the evidence in an item-not-received dispute.

Capturing more than was authorized, permitted only within narrow limits and only in certain industries such as restaurants and hospitality.

A bundle of data organized in a specific way for transmission. The three principal elements of a packet include the header, the text, and trailer (error detection and correction bits).

Settling less than the authorized amount, used when only part of an order ships. The remainder of the hold is released.

Returning part of a transaction, for a returned item or a price adjustment. Refunding promptly is usually cheaper than defending the dispute that follows a slow one.

Pricing where interchange and network fees are billed at cost with a separate stated markup. The same idea as interchange-plus.

A phishing-resistant credential replacing the password, bound to a device and unlocked by biometric or PIN. There is nothing to type, so there is nothing to steal.

The ability to take money from customers in the ways they want to pay, in every channel you sell through.

Reading your own payment data for the decisions hidden in it: which declines are recoverable, which routes approve better, where cost is actually going, and which cohorts dispute.

The programmable interface to a payment platform, used to create charges, refunds, payouts, and to read the events behind them.

The share of started payments that complete successfully. It separates the checkout's performance from the site's traffic quality.

A small card reader that plugs into a phone or tablet. Largely displaced by phones that read contactless cards natively.

A company that holds a master merchant account and boards sub-merchants under it, owning their underwriting, risk, and funding. It is why a new seller can start taking payments in minutes rather than days.

The fields where a payer enters their details. Every extra field costs conversion, and hosted fields keep the data out of your compliance scope.

Fraud committed through the payment itself: stolen credentials, card testing, triangulation, or refund abuse.

The service that takes payment details from a checkout and routes them securely to the processor. It handles encryption, tokenization, and the response, and it is not the same thing as the processor.

Flags carried in an authorization describing the transaction: recurring, instalment, card on file, authenticated. Setting them correctly changes both approval odds and interchange.

A shareable URL that opens a prefilled payment page. The fastest way to get paid without building a checkout, and it works over any channel a link travels.

How the payer chooses to pay: card, bank transfer, wallet, instalments, cash voucher. Offering the ones your market actually uses is the highest-leverage change most checkouts can make.

A layer above multiple providers that routes each transaction to the best one, retries failures elsewhere, and consolidates reporting. It buys redundancy and approval-rate gains at the cost of another integration.

The full path of a payment from authorization through clearing to settlement, and everyone involved on the way.

The company that moves transactions between the merchant, the acquirer, and the networks, and settles the funds.

The underlying network a payment travels on: card networks, ACH, wires, instant rails. Each has its own speed, cost, reversibility, and rules, and choosing between them is a business decision, not a technical one.

Recovering revenue from payments that failed the first time, through retries, account updater, and alternative routing.

A provider that gives merchants everything needed to accept payments, typically gateway, processing, and the merchant account, under one contract.

The whole arrangement of institutions, rules, and infrastructure that lets money move between parties.

Money sent from a platform to a seller, worker, or customer, and the schedule on which it moves.

The slice of fintech concerned specifically with moving money: acceptance, processing, orchestration, and payouts.

Meeting the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for handling card data. The validation burden depends on volume and on how much card data your systems ever touch, which is why hosted fields and tokenization are worth so much.

The body founded by the card networks that writes and maintains the PCI standards. It sets the rules; the networks and acquirers enforce them.

A payment between two individuals through an app or bank service. Generally irreversible, which is why scammers prefer it.

Tailoring the experience to the individual customer. At checkout it usually means showing the payment method they used last time first.

Tricking someone into handing over credentials or money by impersonating a party they trust. Still the entry point for the majority of account compromises.

Personal Identification Number used by cardholder to authenticate card ownership for ATM or debit card transactions. The cardholder enters his/her PIN into a PIN pad. Customer entry of his/her PIN is required to complete an ATM/Debit card transaction.

Split dial capability that allows terminal to process American Express directly through the AMEX network, thereby eliminating AMEX authorization fees.

The three classical stages of money laundering: getting illicit cash into the system, moving it through transactions to obscure its trail, and bringing it back out as apparently clean funds.

Business models where a platform intermediates between many sellers and many buyers. Payments are usually the platform's clearest route to revenue.

Encrypting card data inside the reader and decrypting it only at a validated endpoint. A validated P2PE solution takes most of a merchant's systems out of PCI scope.

Someone holding a prominent public function, or close to someone who does. Not a prohibition, but a trigger for enhanced due diligence and closer monitoring.

POS is the merchant location where the customer makes a purchase; the place and time at which a transaction occurs; also refers to the devices or software used to capture transactions.

A piece of equipment used at a merchant location that is connected to the bank and or their authorization service provider via phone lines to authorize, record, and forward information electronically. If the credit card is available, the merchant can swipe the card through the terminal. See also swipe discount rate and MOTO discount rate.

Post authorization is a sale transaction for which you received a VOICE AUTHORIZATION at an earlier time.

An offer made after payment is complete, charged against the credential already on file. It raises order value without risking the original conversion.

The process of recording debits and credits to individual cardholder account balances.

The step after a representment where the issuer challenges the merchant's evidence before the case goes to network arbitration. Losing at arbitration adds fees on top of the disputed amount.

An authorization taken to verify a card and reserve funds before the final amount is known, as at a hotel or a fuel pump.

The Canadian equivalent of an ACH debit, pulled from an account under a signed agreement.

The underlying offence that generated the money being laundered. Which crimes qualify is set by law and defines the scope of the laundering charge.

A card funded in advance rather than drawing on credit or a bank account. Used for payouts, benefits, and spend control.

The process the acquirer uses to send transaction information to the issuer for reimbursement.

The card number itself. Storing it brings full PCI scope, which is the entire argument for tokenization.

Manufacturing an item only after it is ordered. Long production times make delivery evidence and clear expectations essential to defending disputes.

Prior authorization is an authorization that has been obtained previously, either through operator or through credit card equipment.

Proprietary cards only accepted at that merchants retail location.

The route a payment takes to be processed: in person, online, in app, over the phone, or by recurring billing. Each carries its own rates, rules, and liability.

What a provider charges to process a transaction, usually a percentage plus a fixed amount.

A processor is a large computer center that processes data from credit card transactions and settles funds to merchants.

Selling several items as one offer at one price. It raises order value and simplifies the payment to a single transaction.

A specific set of rules for organizing the transmission of data in a network.

A temporary refund an issuer gives a cardholder while a dispute is investigated. The customer sees their money back immediately, which is why merchants often hear nothing until the chargeback arrives.

The European Union's second Payment Services Directive. It mandated strong customer authentication and forced banks to open account access to licensed third parties, creating open banking.

Public key encryption is a method of encrypting electronic data. Developed to account for weaknesses in symmetric encryption.

A payment the payee initiates against the payer's account under a prior authorization, such as an ACH debit or a card charge.

A payment the payer initiates and sends. Instant rails and wires are push payments, which is why they are hard to reverse.

Sending funds directly to a debit card, arriving in minutes rather than the days an ACH credit takes. Visa Direct and Mastercard Send are the two networks for it.

Paying by scanning a code that carries the payment request. Dominant across much of Asia and Latin America, and used for account-to-account payments that bypass cards entirely.

A level at which a transaction interchanges. Level of qualification (qualified, mid-qualified, etc.) is dependent on how credit card number is entered, how quickly a transaction is settled, the type of industry, specific information, etc.

A Visa service that automatically resolves qualifying disputes by refunding the customer before a chargeback is created, based on rules the merchant sets in advance.

A financial transaction originated by a merchant to recover funds charged back by a card issuer.

Authorizes a credit card in real-time, as a customer makes their purchase.

Settling payments individually and immediately rather than netting them in batches. Used for high-value transfers where settlement risk matters.

Payments that clear and settle in seconds, at any hour, with immediate finality. In the United States that is the RTP network and FedNow.

The verification and processing of credit card transactions immediately following a purchase. Real-time verification on the web usually takes less than five minutes. Real-time verification is especially important for websites that sell products and services that consumers expect immediately, such as memberships to the site or software downloads.

A code used to provide additional information to a member regarding chargebacks, presentments, or retrieval requests.

A hard copy of an invoice or sales draft that took place at the point of sale that includes a date, merchant name and or location, account number, dollar amount, reference code and the type of account.

Reconciliation is an exchange of messages between two institutions (acquirer, card issuer, or their agents) to reach agreement on their financial totals.

Recurring fees are regular, usually monthly, charges for maintaining a merchant account. Recurring fees include the discount rate, transaction fees, statement fee, and monthly minimum.

Charges taken on a schedule under a standing authorization. The mechanics of consent, retries, and card updates matter more than the schedule itself.

Revenue that repeats predictably under subscription or contract, rather than being won again each period.

A transaction that is charged to the cardholder on regular scheduled intervals for goods and or services provided.

A code given to a transaction by Host based processors.

Rewarding existing customers or partners for bringing new ones. Attribution rules decide who earns the credit when more than one referrer is involved.

Returning money for a completed transaction. It is a new transaction, not a cancellation, so processing fees on the original are usually not returned.

Refunds as a share of transactions. A rising refund rate is often the earliest warning of a fulfilment or product problem, well before chargebacks show it.

The United States rule implementing the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. It sets consumer error-resolution rights and liability limits on electronic transfers, including debit cards and ACH.

The United States rule implementing the Truth in Lending Act, covering credit disclosure and cardholder billing-dispute rights.

A supervised environment where a regulator lets a firm test a product with real customers under relaxed requirements and tight limits.

Software that automates compliance work: screening, monitoring, reporting, and evidence collection.

An authorization used when a previous authorization was approved and a subsequent authorization because the amount of the transaction is now different from the originally approved amount.

A portion of the revenue from a merchant's credit card transactions, held in reserve by the merchant account provider to cover possible disputed charges, chargeback fees, and other expenses. After a predetermined time, holdbacks are turned over to the merchant. Note: Merchant account providers almost never pay interest on holdbacks.

A retrieval request is a request to a merchant for documentation concerning a transaction, usually a cardholder dispute or suspicious sale/return. A retrieval request can lead to a CHARGEBACK.

Revenue generated per unit of advertising spend.

Gain relative to cost, as a ratio or percentage.

The published terms on which a customer may return goods. A clear policy the customer accepted at checkout is one of the strongest pieces of evidence in a dispute.

Revenue divided by site visitors. It combines conversion and order value into one number, which makes it harder to fool than either alone.

The accounting rules deciding when revenue may be booked, which is when it is earned rather than when it is collected.

A reversal is a transaction from the acquirer to the card issuer informing the card issuer that the previously initiated transaction cannot be processed as instructed, i.e., is undeliverable, unprocessed or cancelled by the receiver.

The terminal is set up to dial direct to AMEX for authorization and settlement.

Identifying, pricing, and containing the losses a payments business can take: fraud, credit, chargebacks, and regulatory exposure.

Assigning a numeric risk value to a merchant or transaction so decisions can be automated and consistent.

Directing compliance effort in proportion to actual risk rather than treating every customer identically. The model the FATF standards are built on.

A reserve where a percentage of each day's settlement is held and released on a rolling schedule, commonly 10 percent for 180 days. Standard for high-risk merchants and a real working-capital cost.

A sales draft is an actual paper documentation of a transaction.

The narrowing path from awareness to purchase. Checkout is the last stage, and the one where the most qualified traffic is lost.

An ACH option settling within the same business day at a higher fee, subject to per-transaction limits and submission windows.

Settling a merchant's takings to their account on the day of the transaction, subject to cutoffs.

Samsung's mobile wallet for contactless and in-app payments.

A government list of people, entities, and jurisdictions that may not be transacted with. OFAC's is the most consequential for dollar payments.

Checking parties and payments against sanctions lists before processing. Required, unforgiving, and a common source of false positives on common names.

A test environment that mirrors production without moving real money, used to build and validate an integration.

A fee charged by the card network itself, distinct from interchange, which goes to the issuer. Scheme fees are numerous, granular, and not negotiable.

A packaged library that lets a developer add payment acceptance to an app without building the integration from raw APIs.

A web server or computer on the Internet that can establish encrypted communication with clients, typically using SSL or SET.

An internal department within the credit/risk department that monitors the performance of the entire portfolio/merchant client base by monitoring suspect accounts and or transactions for possible fraudulent activity.

Full magnetic stripe data, chip data, CVV, and PIN blocks. PCI prohibits storing any of it after authorization, without exception.

The Single Euro Payments Area, which makes euro transfers between participating countries work like domestic ones.

The SEPA scheme that settles euro credit transfers in seconds, around the clock.

The authorization a payer signs allowing a business to collect SEPA direct debits from their account, with a reference the payer can use to identify and challenge collections.

Sending analytics and marketing events from your server rather than the browser. More reliable against ad blockers, and it puts the data governance burden on you.

An early standard for encrypting online card transactions, developed in the 1990s by the card networks and several technology companies. It was never widely adopted and has been superseded by TLS and by 3D Secure.

A settlement is the process by which transactions with authorization codes are sent to the processor for payment to the merchant.

Fees charged for establishing a merchant account, including application fees, software licensing fees, and equipment purchases.

A company with no real operations, used to hold assets or obscure ownership. Legal in itself and a persistent laundering vehicle, which is why beneficial ownership is verified.

A shopping cart program is a software package that runs as part of a website to collect and record purchasing decisions by a visitor. Shopping cart programs are stored on web servers.

These codes are four digits used to identify the business type.

An attack where a fraudster ports a victim's phone number to their own SIM to intercept SMS codes. It is why SMS is the weakest second factor.

A card flow where authorization and clearing travel in one message, so the amount is fixed at the moment of sale. The typical model for PIN debit.

A smart card is a plastic card containing a computer chip that can store electronic "money." Unlike a credit card, a smart card can only spend out the dollar amount its owner has already put into the card account. It's similar in function to a prepaid calling card but is available for all purchases.

Code on a blockchain that executes automatically when its conditions are met, without an intermediary.

Retrying a failed recurring payment at the time and in the way most likely to succeed, using the decline code and issuer behaviour rather than a fixed schedule. It is the single biggest lever on involuntary churn.

Sending each transaction to the acquirer or route most likely to approve it, based on card type, geography, and live performance.

An internet-connected payment terminal that runs apps as well as taking payments, so the point of sale, loyalty, and reporting live on one device.

Marketing by text message. Consent rules are stricter than email and the penalties for getting them wrong are real.

An audit report on a service organisation's controls over security, availability, confidentiality, processing integrity, and privacy. Type II covers a period of operation rather than a single date.

Manipulating a person into granting access or sending money, rather than attacking a system. It defeats controls that assume the human is the trusted part.

Using the visible behaviour of other customers, such as reviews and counts, to increase confidence. At checkout, trust signals reduce abandonment.

A decline that can be retried, such as insufficient funds or a temporary issuer error, and often one that only needs authentication to be re-attempted successfully.

Spam is unsolicited email. There are two common usages: 1) mass e-mailings by commercial sites to recipients who have not requested any contact, and 2) e-mail sent to intentionally annoy or harass the recipient, including crashing his or her computer by overloading its email capacity.

The terminal dials direct to AMEX for authorization and settles at the VISA/MASTERCARD Host.

Dividing one transaction between several recipients, as a marketplace does when paying a seller and keeping its own fee. Who legally holds the funds in between is the question that decides your licensing.

The licensed bank that provides network access and holds the risk under which a processor, payfac, or program manager operates. Every card program has one, and losing it stops the business.

A system for encrypting data sent over the Internet, including e-commerce transactions and passwords. With SSL, client and server computers exchange public keys, allowing them to encode and decode their communication.

The protocols encrypting data in transit between a browser and a server. SSL is the deprecated ancestor; everything current is TLS, though the old name persists.

A cryptocurrency pegged to a fiat currency and backed by reserves. Used for settlement and cross-border transfer where blockchain speed helps and volatility would not be tolerated.

A fixed, recurring transfer the payer instructs their own bank to send. The payer controls it, unlike a direct debit, which the payee pulls.

Supplies that are shipped to new merchants including sales drafts/slips, credit slips, batch header tickets, Visa/MasterCard decals, imprinter plates, terminal overlays and instruction guides.

A monthly charge for producing a merchant statement, whether or not anyone reads it.

The identifier for a specific sellable item. SKU-level detail in a transaction supports Level 3 interchange and makes dispute evidence concrete.

A stored value card is a prepaid card that stores a monetary value from which the purchase amount is deducted after each transaction. T.

Processing a transaction end to end with no manual intervention. The measure of how much of your payment operation is actually automated.

The European requirement that electronic payments be authenticated with two independent factors, subject to defined exemptions for low value and low risk.

Breaking a large cash transaction into smaller ones to stay under a reporting threshold. A federal crime in its own right, whatever the source of the funds.

A merchant boarded under a payment facilitator's master account rather than holding its own. Faster to onboard, and it inherits the payfac's rules and risk appetite.

Charging on a recurring schedule and managing everything around it: plans, proration, upgrades, dunning, and cancellation.

The system of record for what each customer is entitled to and what they owe. Where it disagrees with the payment system, disputes follow.

Coordinating sourcing, inventory, and delivery. It sets the fulfilment timelines that underwriters and dispute rules care about.

Technology used by regulators themselves to supervise firms, as opposed to RegTech, which firms use to comply.

Adding a fee to a card transaction to recover processing cost. Permitted in much of the United States under network rules and state law, with strict caps, disclosure, and registration requirements, and prohibited on debit.

A suspect transaction is a transaction that occurs one day prior to or directly after an account number is listed in the Warning Bulletin or pick up list.

The report a financial institution files with FinCEN when it detects activity that may indicate a crime. Telling the customer a SAR was filed is itself illegal.

The global messaging network banks use to instruct cross-border transfers. It moves the instructions, not the money.

The discount rate charged by a merchant account provider for transactions in which a credit card is swiped on the POS equipment. It is also available for inspection by the merchant. Swipe discount rates are generally lower than MOTO discount rates because the merchant can match signatures and perform other checks for fraud or misuse.

A swiped card is credit card information that is read directly into the terminal as a result of swiping or sliding the credit card through a card reader. The information magnetically encoded in the magnetic stripe is transmitted. This information includes secret data that helps validate the card.

A switch is an electronic service that routes transaction information from the POS terminal to the authorization center for approval.

Fraud using an identity assembled from real and fabricated details, often built up with good behaviour over months before a bust-out. It is the hardest identity fraud to detect because no real victim ever reports it.

Travel and entertainment card issued by a private, non-bank company that deals directly with the cardholder and the merchant and typically create full payment on a monthly basis.

A travel and entertainment merchant such as an airline, lodging, restaurant or car rental company whose main function is to provide travel/entertainment related services.

A tag is a code within a data structure that gives instructions for formatting or other actions. HTML documents are set up using HTML tags, which serve various functions, such as controlling the styling of text and placement of graphic elements and providing links to interactive programs and scripts.

Accepting a contactless card or wallet directly on a phone, with no separate reader. It turns any modern phone into a terminal.

An end-use device (usually with display monitor and keyboard) with little or no software of its own that relies on a mainframe or another computer (such as a PC server) for its "intelligence." A variation of this kind of terminal is being revived in the idea of the thin client or network computer. The term is sometimes used to mean any personal computer or user workstation that is hooked up to a network.

Terminal Based is a system that captures credit card transactions and holds them until settlement.

Terminal Capture is a type of software in which transaction information is stored in software, not at the host computer. Merchants using terminal capture must initiate SETTLEMENT at the end of each day or shift. Compare to HOST SETTLE.

The identifier for a specific terminal or lane under a merchant account, used to trace a transaction to the device that took it.

A third-party processor is anon-member agent, employed by an acquiring bank, which provides authorization, settlement, and merchant services to a merchant.

An outsourced provider handling warehousing and fulfilment. Their tracking data becomes your delivery evidence.

Ticket size is the monetary value of an order placed by credit card.

Pricing that sorts transactions into qualified, mid-qualified, and non-qualified buckets at different rates. The provider decides what lands where, which makes it the least transparent common model.

A file listing the names of merchants and their principals whose bankcard relationship has been terminated by the acquirer.

The secure store that maps tokens back to real card numbers. Migrating between vaults is possible but has to be done through the networks to preserve the tokens' history.

Replacing a card number with a surrogate value that is useless if stolen. It removes the card number from your systems, cuts PCI scope, and is the foundation under wallets and network tokens.

A transaction is an action between cardholder and merchant that results in activity on a cardholder account.

Transaction date is the actual date on which a transaction occurs.

Service fees charged to the merchant on a per transaction basis. This is in addition to the percentage DISCOUNT fees.

Screening payment activity continuously for patterns that suggest laundering, fraud, or sanctions exposure, and escalating what it finds.

The amount of a single transaction. Average transaction value drives interchange qualification, fraud exposure, and how much a decline actually costs.

Running free and paid trials: validating the card up front, telling the customer before the first real charge, and converting them cleanly. Weak disclosure here is a leading cause of disputes.

An anti-theft mechanism in which the complete credit card number and expiration date does not appear on the sales receipt. The last four digits of the credit card number will appear on the sales receipt.

A turnkey application is software that requires little or no modification when inserted into a website. In e-commerce, many MAPs (Merchant Account Providers) and ISOs offer turnkey applications for processing credit card orders online.

Authentication requiring two independent factors. A subset of multi-factor authentication, and the practical minimum for account security.

Assessing whether to take on a merchant and on what terms: what they sell, who owns them, their financial condition, and their expected chargeback exposure. It sets pricing, limits, and reserves.

One platform and one customer record across every sales channel, so payments, inventory, and history are the same everywhere the customer meets you.

Offering a higher-value version of what the customer is already buying.

An address for a file (or page) located on the Internet, usually the web. Example: www.KashuPay.com.

The 2001 United States law that substantially expanded anti-money-laundering obligations, including the requirement for a formal customer identification program.

Charging for what was consumed in a period. Amounts vary each cycle, so authorization and communication matter more than in fixed billing.

The date embossed by the card issuer on the credit card.

Third party software vendors.

An open banking mandate letting a business take account-to-account payments of varying amounts within limits the customer set. A direct debit with a hard ceiling the payer controls.

A card number generated for a single use, a single supplier, or a fixed limit. Used to control spend and to contain the damage of a leak.

A web page a merchant uses to key in a card manually, for phone or mail orders. Convenient, higher interchange, and card-not-present liability.

A voice auth is a transaction authorization that is provided by an operator, usually when an issuer sends a "Please Call" message to the merchant instead of an authorization number.

Cancelling a transaction before it settles, so nothing ever hits the customer's statement. Cheaper and cleaner than a refund, but only possible before the batch closes.

A ceiling an acquirer places on how much a merchant may process in a period. Exceeding it can hold funds, which is why growth should be flagged to the acquirer in advance.

A VPN is a private network of computers that's at least partially connected by public phone lines. A good example would be a private office LAN that allows users to log in remotely over the Internet (an open, public system). VPNs use encryption and secure protocols like PPTP to ensure that data transmissions are not intercepted by unauthorized parties.

A VRU is an automated authorization support system for touchtone phones.

A computer dedicated to storing the various files that make up web pages and the protocols needed for communicating with other computers via the Internet.

A message your provider sends to your server when something happens, such as a payment succeeding or a dispute opening. Handle them idempotently, because they can arrive twice.

Payment services delivered under another company's brand, with the licensed provider invisible to the end customer.

A direct bank-to-bank transfer of funds, same-day and effectively irreversible once sent. Used for high value, and the reason wire fraud losses are rarely recovered.

Wireless is a description of radio-based systems that allow transmission of telephone and/or data signals through the air without a physical connection.

A meta language containing a set of rules for constructing other markup languages. With XML, people can make up their own tags, which expands the amount and kinds of information that can be provided about the data held in documents. It enables designers to create their own customized tags to provide functionality not available with HTML. For example, XML supports links that point to multiple documents, as opposed to HTML links, which can reference just one destination each.

An authorization for no money, used to check that a card is valid and the account is open before storing it. Standard practice at the start of a free trial.

Data a customer gives you deliberately, such as preferences they selected. Distinct from data inferred by tracking, and it does not disappear when third-party cookies do.