| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Acquirer/Acquiring bank | The institution that processes card payments for a merchant. |
| Authorization | The real-time approval of a transaction by the issuing bank. |
| Batch | A group of approved transactions submitted for clearing/settlement. |
| Chargeback | A transaction reversal initiated by a cardholder’s bank. |
| CNP (Card‑Not‑Present) | Transactions where the card isn’t physically present (ecommerce, phone). |
| Interchange | Fees paid to issuing banks for each transaction. |
| Issuer | The cardholder’s bank that approves or declines transactions. |
| MCC | Merchant Category Code classifying the type of business. |
| PCI DSS | Security standard for handling cardholder data. |
| Tokenization | Replacing card data with a surrogate token for storage/recurring use. |
Glossary
Quick definitions of common payment terms.