The wisdom of payments processing
Recently we have been receiving questions like: “Who bears the risk of underwriting: the gateway, the payment processor, or the merchant acquirer?” or “Why do some gateways ask about existing acquiring partner or merchant acquirer bank relationships while other [...]
In our previous articles we wrote how different types of companies could become payment facilitators and benefit from this transition. Such companies include franchisors, SaaS platform owners, online marketplaces, and others. In a separate paper we outlined the key s [...]
What is an acquiring bank? Companies that want to have their own payment gateways (become payment gateway providers) often do not bother to ask this question as they do not understand the payment acquirer concept and why they need to partner with an acquiring bank to [...]
Payment aggregation is a processing arrangement when a large business (called the aggregator) is processing transactions on behalf of many smaller businesses belonging to its portfolio. How can payment aggregation be practically implemented? Payment aggregation can b [...]
What is a credit card descriptor (soft descriptor)? A credit card descriptor is a text, rendered on a cardholder’s statement, describing a particular product or service, purchased by the cardholder. Descriptors are intended to help the cardholder identify the produ [...]
What is the difference between committed and uncommitted recurring billing? Recurring billing is a process when a merchant charges a customer’s account at regular time intervals for purchases of goods and services. Uncommitted recurring billing does not involve any [...]
Payment gateway software is a server application facilitating exchange of payment related data (cardholder and transaction information) between a merchant and a payment processor or an acquiring bank. For example, payment gateway software can provide connectivity bet [...]
An ACH payment gateway is a kind of payment gateway that allows to process ACH transactions. Usually it connects to various banks or ACH processing networks to provide access to all of its financial institutions for its merchants. What is the difference between ACH a [...]
A credit card chargeback is one of the customer protection means. Credit card chargeback is a dispute between a cardholder and a merchant over a certain amount of money, happening when the cardholder believes that the money has been charged illegitimately or by mista [...]
What is a credit card tokenization and payment tokenization? Credit card tokenization is an approach used by businesses, which process credit card payments, to reduce their PCI scope. In order to ensure cardholder data protection, PCI requires credit card numbers to [...]
What is a payment service provider or PSP? A payment service provider (or PSP) is a company facilitating different types of payment processing for other companies, usually through its own payment system. What is the difference between a payment service provider and a [...]
CC BIN abbreviation stands for credit card bank identification number. Card BIN includes the first 6 to 9 digits of credit card number. Values of particular digits in BIN of a credit card define various information about the type of the card and its issuing bank. For [...]
