Meramak Bankcard Merchant Account Services
Brief Glossary of Terms: Back to FAQ
Account
number A specific sequence of numbers assigned
to a cardholder's account
that identifies the issuer and type of financial transaction card.
Acquirer
A licensed member that maintains the merchant relationship and acquires
the
data relating to a transaction from the merchant or card acceptor and
submits that data
into interchange, either directly or indirectly.
Authorization
A transaction is approved by or on behalf of an issuer; commonly
understood to be receiving of a sales validation by the merchant, by
telephone,
or authorization terminal.
Bankcard A debit or credit card issued by a bank or other financial institution
Cardholder
The customer to whom a card has been issued or the individual
authorized to use the card.
Cash
disbursement A transaction that is posted to a cardholder's credit
card
account in which the cardholder receives cash at an ATM, or cash or
travelers
cheques at a branch of a member financial institution or at a qualified
and
approved agent of a member financial institution.
Clearing
The process of exchanging financial transaction details between an
acquirer and an issuer to facilitate posting of a cardholder's account
and
reconciliation of a customer's settlement position.
CO-branded
card A credit card issued by a member bank and a merchant,
bearing the "brand" of both.
Corporate card A bankcard issued to companies for use by company employees.
Credit
card A plastic card bearing an account number assigned to a cardholder
with a credit limit that can be used to purchase goods and services
and to obtain
cash disbursements on credit, for which a cardholder is subsequently
billed by an
issuer for repayment of the credit extended at once or on an installment
basis.
Debit
card A plastic card used to initiate a debit transaction. In general,
these
transactions are used primarily to purchase goods and services and to
obtain cash,
for which the cardholder's asset account is debited by the issuer.
Electronic
draft capture (EDC) A system in which the transaction data is captured
at the merchant location for processing and storage.
Electronic
funds transfer (EFT) A paperless transfer of funds initiated from
a
terminal, computer, telephone instrument, or magnetic tape.
Imprinter
A device supplied to the merchant to produce an image of the embossed
characters of the bankcard on all copies of sales drafts and credit
slips.
Magnetic
stripe The magnetically encoded stripe on the bankcard plastic that
contains information pertinent to the cardholder account.
Magnetic
stripe reader A device that reads information recorded on the
magnetic stripe of a card.
Mail
Order/Telephone Order (MO/TO) A transaction initiated by mail or
telephone
to be debited or credited to a bankcard account.
Merchant
A retailer, or any other person, firm, or corporation that
(pursuant to a merchant agreement) agrees to accept credit cards, debit
cards,
or both, when properly presented.
Merchant
bank A bank that has entered into an agreement with a merchant to
accept
deposits generated by bankcard transactions; also called the acquirer
or acquiring bank.
Personal
identification number (PIN) A four-to-12 character secret code that
allows an issuer to positively authenticate the cardholder for the purpose
of approving
an ATM or terminal transaction occurring at a point-of-interaction device.
Purchasing
card Designed to help companies maintain control of purchases
while reducing the administrative cost associated with authorizing,
tracking, paying,
and reconciling those purchases.
Receipt
A hard-copy document representing a transaction that took place at the
point of sale, with a description that usually includes: date, merchant
name/location,
primary account number, amount and reference number.
Settlement
The process by which merchant and cardholder banks exchange financial
data and value resulting from sales transactions, cash disbursements
and merchandise credits.
Third-party
processing Processing of transactions by parties acting under
contract to issuers or acquirers.
Transaction
Action between a cardholder and a merchant or a cardholder and
a member that results in activity on the cardholder account.
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