Acquirer
Obtains merchant's credit card transactions and processes them for payment.
Acquiring Financial Institution

An acquiring financial institution (or "acquirer") contracts with the bank and the merchant to enable credit card transactions. The acquirer deposits the credit card totals and debits the end-of-month processing fees from the merchants' accounts.

Address Verification Service (AVS)
The process of validating a cardholder's given address against the issuer's records, to determine accuracy and deter fraud. This service is provided as part of a credit card authorization for mail order/telephone order transactions. A code is returned with the authorization result that indicates the accuracy of the address match.
Adjustment
An adjustment is initiated by the acquirer to correct a processing error. The error could be a duplication of a transaction or the result of a cardholder dispute. The acquirer debits or credits the merchant’s account for the dollar amount of the adjustment.
Authorization
The process of verifying that the credit card has sufficient funds (credit) available to cover the amount of the transaction. An authorization must be obtained prior to every sale.
Authorization Code
A code that a credit card issuing bank returns in an electronic message to RevTrak that indicates approval of the transaction. The code serves as proof of authorization.
Authorization Response
An issuing financial institution's electronic message reply to an authorization request, which may include:
Approval -- transaction was approved
Decline -- transaction was not approved
Referral -- response pending more information, merchant must call the toll-free authorization phone number.
Automated Clearing House (ACH)
A nationwide electronic funds transfer system that provides for inter-bank clearing of electronic payments.  An ACH transaction is an electronic fund transfer through the Federal Reserve Bank from a checking or savings account.
Bankcard
A MasterCard or Visa credit card.
Batch
A group of authorized transactions that have been settled together.
Card Not Present
A transaction where the card is not present at the time of the transaction (such as a mail order, telephone order, or Internet purchase).
Cardholder
Any person who holds a payment card account (bankcard or otherwise).
Charge Back
A credit card transaction that is billed back to the merchant after the sale has been settled. Charge backs are initiated by the card issuer on behalf of the cardholder. Typical cardholder disputes involve product delivery failure or product/service dissatisfaction. Cardholders are urged to try to obtain satisfaction from the merchant before disputing the bill with the credit card issuer.
Corporate Card
Credit card used for business-related expenses such as travel and entertainment.
Credit (Reversal)
Nullification of an authorized transaction (sale) that has not been settled. If supported by the card issuer, a reversal will immediately "undo" an authorization and return it to the open-to-buy balance on a cardholder's account. Some card issuers do not support reversals.
Debit Card
Credit card whose funds are withdrawn directly from the cardholder's checking account.
Ecommerce
The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. Specifically, ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds through lines of digital communications such as the Internet.
Encryption
Encryption scrambles and unscrambles information using mathematical equations and a secret code called a key. Usually one key encodes and another decodes. The sender possesses the encoding key. The decoding key may be possessed by several receivers.
Host
A web host provides server space for companies and organizations to store and publish their website so that the website can be viewed over the Internet.
Independent Sales Organization (ISO)
An organization that processes merchant’s credit card transactions in exchange for a commission paid by the Acquiring Financial Institution.
Issuer
Organizations that issue credit cards to consumers.
Mail Order/ Telephone Order (MOTO):
Credit card transactions initiated via mail, email or telephone. Also known as card-not-present transactions.
Merchant
School, Government or non profit organization that accepts credit cards using RevTrak.
Merchant Account
Is like a bank account established with a payment processor (RevTrak) for the settlement of credit card transactions. Any merchant who wants to accept credit card orders must establish a merchant account. Once the merchant account is setup, the organization can begin accepting credit cards in person, over the phone, by mail, or through the internet and the money is credited directly to the organization’s bank account.
Merchant Number
Identifying number assigned to each merchant.
Network
Company used to authorize and capture credit card transactions.
Payment Gateway
A combination of software and hardware that provides an interface to the bank card processing network.
Processor
A third party organization that processes the credit card information.
Purchasing Card
Credit card used by a business or an organization to cover purchasing expenses.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol is a method of passing sensitive information, such as credit card details, over the Internet. SSL enables client and server applications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering and message forgery by encrypting confidential transmissions.
Settlement
Process of sending the merchant's batch to the network for processing and payment.
Shopping Cart
Software that operates on an online storefront. The "shopping cart" keeps track of all the items that a buyer wants to purchase, allowing the shopper to pay for the whole order at once.
Terminal
The “old” way of accepting credit cards. They usually cost between $200 and $600 a piece, in addition to requiring a dedicated phone line for each unit. They generally cannot be upgraded and as such, they become obsolete over time.
Transaction
Refers to a sale, purchase or transfer of money made using a credit card. There are two kinds of transactions: offline and online. An offline transaction is when the shop assistant makes an imprint of the card and sends a paper voucher of the sale to the bank for processing. An online transaction is when the shop enters the card details into RevTrak® software and the information is then passed by computer directly to the bank.