Acceptance contract

The acceptance contract is concluded between an acquirer (merchant bank) and merchant. It entitles the merchant to process debit and credit card payments.

Acquirer

An acquirer is a company that:

• enables a merchant to securely and reliably process payments with credit and debit cards at the point of sales, such as the Internet;

• settles the card payments for the merchant;

• advances the payment amount to the merchant, particularly for credit card payments, until the cardholder has paid; which is why the acquirer is also considered to be a merchant bank.

Additional card

A card that augments the main card. An additional card can be applied for by the cardholder for a relative and generally comes with lower annual fees.

Acquiring processing

All the transactions for the acquirer’s (merchant bank) merchants, such as SIX Multipay, are processed by acquiring processing, regardless of the type of payment means (debit cards, credit cards, CASH) and the payment type (presence payment, distance payment).

Additional functions

Additional functions are card functions that are not directly related to card payments and which primarily serve to make the card attractive to the customer group addressed. This largely includes insurance and added service functions.

ADSL

ADSL is a modern technology for accessing the Internet that enables faster and more inexpensive transactions than a modem or an ISDN connection.

AIS (Account Information Security)

AIS is the data security program developed by the credit card organization Visa. It requires merchants to process and/or store cardholder data in a secure environment. In most cases, cost and security issues make it advisable to hand these tasks over to a specialized service provider, known as a Payment Service Provider (PSP).

ATM (Automatic Teller Machine)

ATM is the commonly used acronym for Automated Teller Machine. It dispenses cash.

Authorization

Authorization designates the procedure used by the cardholder’s bank to approve a card payment. The criteria used for an authorization include the card validity period, card number, PIN code, purchasing limit per week/month and the amount limit per transaction.

Authorization center

The authorization center refers to the computer center, which on the one hand settles card payments on behalf of an acquirer, while also serving card issuers by authorizing payments.

Authorization service

The authorization service is a telephone service provided by the acquirer through which a merchant can authorize a booking and investigate non-authorized payments.