A to C
Acquirer
The regulated institution that connects a merchant to the card networks, receives the funds from card payments and settles them to the merchant. Every card-taking business sits on acquiring somewhere, and specialist acquiring means acquiring that deliberately underwrites your sector rather than avoiding it.
Authorisation
The real-time approval of a card payment. The gateway sends the transaction to the customer’s bank, which checks the card, the funds and the risk signals and answers in a second or two. Authorised means approved to proceed, and settlement of the money follows separately.
Average transaction value
Your typical sale amount, calculated as card turnover divided by transaction count. It shapes which fees matter most in a quote, because fixed pence fees bite hardest on small baskets, which is why quotes should always be priced against your real numbers.
Card scheme
The networks the whole system runs on, Visa and Mastercard being the biggest. Schemes set the rules for authorisation, disputes and merchant categories, and monitor every merchant’s chargeback ratio against their thresholds.
Chargeback
A payment reversed through the card scheme after the customer disputes it with their bank. The merchant loses the funds and pays an administration fee unless the case is successfully challenged with evidence. The working defence is covered in our guide to minimising chargebacks.
Chargeback ratio
The share of a merchant’s transactions that become chargebacks, watched closely by the card schemes. A persistently high ratio pulls a merchant into formal monitoring with escalating consequences, which is why dispute prevention is infrastructure rather than admin.
Chip and PIN
The card-present standard where the customer inserts their card and enters their PIN, used above the contactless limit or when contactless is unavailable. Every eCom Pay terminal takes Chip and PIN alongside contactless and mobile wallets.
Contactless
Tap-to-pay by card, phone or watch, now the default for most in-person payments in the UK. Speed at the terminal is speed through the queue, which is why it leads every card machine we supply.
CVV
The three-digit security code on the back of a card, proving the person paying has the physical card to hand. With tokenised saved cards, the CVV is the only detail a returning customer types, which is what makes one-tap repeat checkout possible.
D to H
Descriptor
The business name that appears on the customer’s card statement for a payment. A descriptor customers recognise is one of the simplest chargeback defences in existence, because nobody disputes a charge they recognise, and it is agreed as part of account setup.
Dispute
The stage before a chargeback, when a customer questions a payment with their bank. Dispute alerts surface complaints at this stage, giving the merchant a chance to refund or resolve directly before the case hardens into a chargeback and lands on the ratio.
3D Secure 2
The current strong customer authentication standard for online card payments, where the customer is verified by their bank during checkout, usually invisibly. Successful authentication shifts fraud liability away from the merchant, and it runs as standard on eCom Pay checkouts and Pay by Link.
Gateway
The technology that carries a payment from your checkout to the banking system and back, securely. The gateway captures the card details, requests authorisation and returns the answer. eCom Pay provides the gateway and the merchant account together, on one relationship.
High risk merchant account
A payment account underwritten specifically for sectors that generic providers treat with blanket caution, such as travel, pharmacy, gaming or vape. The label describes the sector’s payment profile, not the quality of the business. The full picture lives on our high risk payment solutions hub.
Hosted payment page
A payment form served from the gateway’s secure infrastructure rather than the merchant’s website, styled with the merchant’s branding. Card details never touch the merchant’s server, which keeps security high and the merchant’s PCI DSS workload small.
I to O
Interchange
The fee paid to the customer’s card-issuing bank on each transaction, set by the card schemes and forming part of the overall processing cost. It varies by card type, which is one reason rates should be agreed against a merchant’s real card mix.
Issuer
The bank that issued the customer’s card and approves or declines the authorisation request. In a dispute, the issuer represents the cardholder’s side, which is why merchant evidence has to meet the standards the schemes set.
MCC
The merchant category code, a four-digit classification describing what a business sells. The MCC influences risk treatment and scheme rules, and part of proper underwriting is making sure a business is classified as what it actually is.
Merchant account
The account that receives the funds from card payments before they settle to the business bank account. With eCom Pay, the merchant account and gateway come together, underwritten by specialists, with settlement the next working day.
Minimum monthly billing
A quote line requiring an account to generate a set amount of transaction fees each month, with the merchant paying the difference in any month it does not. It quietly recreates a contract and makes quiet months cost extra. Every eCom Pay account carries £0 minimum billing, and the maths lives in our card machine comparison guide.
MOTO
Mail order and telephone order payments, where the card details are taken remotely rather than online or in person, typically through a virtual terminal. MOTO payments carry no 3D Secure protection, which is why Pay by Link is often the stronger route for remote customers.
Multi-currency
Accepting payments in the customer’s currency while settling in your own. eCom Pay processes in 150+ currencies with settlement in 25+, on one account with one report, detailed on our multi-currency page.
Open Banking
Bank-to-bank payments authorised by the customer inside their own banking app, with no card network involved, which means no card chargebacks on those transactions. Covered in full on our Open Banking page.
P to R
Pay by Link
A secure payment link sent by email or text, opening a hosted payment page the customer completes in a tap. It replaces card details read over the phone, collects invoices and deposits cleanly, and carries 3D Secure 2. See the full Pay by Link page.
PCI DSS
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, the security requirements applying to every business that takes card payments. The burden follows the card data, so hosted pages and tokenisation that keep data off merchant systems shrink the workload dramatically, as explained on our PCI compliance page.
Recurring payments
Automatic billing for subscriptions, memberships and instalments, with the card charged on schedule and failed payments retried intelligently. The engine behind subscription businesses, detailed on our recurring payments page.
Refund
A payment returned to the customer by the merchant, flowing back through the same account that took it. Clean, prompt refunds resolve complaints before they become disputes, which makes refund policy part of chargeback defence.
Representment
The formal process of challenging a chargeback with evidence, order records, delivery confirmations, acknowledged terms and authentication data. Cases are won on evidence assembled to scheme standards, which is what proper chargeback support actually does.
Reserve
A portion of processed funds held as a buffer against future refunds and disputes, most often as a rolling reserve released on a schedule. A fair reserve is agreed openly at underwriting and shaped to how the business trades, and many properly underwritten accounts run without one.
Risk engine
The real-time screening that scores every transaction for fraud signals before it authorises. Tuned well, it stops fraud without declining genuine customers, which is why eCom Pay pairs the engine with a dedicated Risk Analyst, covered on the fraud protection page.
S to Z
SCA
Strong customer authentication, the UK and EU requirement that online payments verify the customer through their bank, met in practice by 3D Secure 2 and inherently by Open Banking. It protects both sides of the transaction and shifts liability on authenticated payments.
Settlement
The money from card payments arriving in the business bank account. Settlement timing is working capital, and next working day settlement, the eCom Pay standard, means weekend takings fund the week ahead.
SoftPOS
Software that turns an ordinary Android phone into a contactless card machine with no extra hardware, the lightest way to start taking in-person payments. Part of the range on our mobile card machines page.
Tokenisation
Replacing stored card numbers with secure tokens held in a vault, so returning customers pay in one tap with just their CVV while real card data never touches the merchant’s systems. Explained in full on our payment tokenisation page.
Underwriting
The review of a business before its payment account opens, covering what it sells, how it trades and the risk the account will carry. Proper up-front underwriting is why an account behaves in month six exactly as agreed on day one, with no surprise freezes.
Virtual terminal
A secure browser-based way to take card payments for phone and mail orders, with the details entered directly into secure infrastructure rather than written down. Covered on our virtual terminal page.