Glossary
This page is a summary of terms and acronyms frequently used throughout the documentation.
| TERM | ACRONYM MEANING | DEFINITION |
|---|---|---|
| 3DS | 3 Domain Secure | Technical standard for online transactions in which, in addition to card verification, a cardholder verification step is implemented as an additional security layer, by requesting the user to input a PIN or one-time password or by using risk-assessment algorithms to verify the purchaser’s identity. |
| AAV | Accountholder Authentication Value | AAV is a MC Sec code token that uses UCAF for transport in authorisations. Issued by Issuer, proof of fully authenticated or an attempted auth transaction. This is the value passed from Merchant to Issuer in order to validate the 3DS Mastercard transaction. |
| ABU | Automatic Billing Updater | A Mastercard (MC) system storing information like card number existence and its expiry date. Knowing this, MC can respond to some Authorisation requests earlier in the network flow, without the need to send the requests to the issuer (Paymentology). |
| AC | Application Cryptogram | An Application Cryptogram is generated by a card during the authorisation of a transaction. This cryptogram is sent to the card issuer in online authorisation and clearing messages, and can be verified by the issuer to confirm the legitimacy of the transaction. |
| Aconite/ETM | Aconite is a third-party transaction manager system operating in the EMV environment | |
| Acquirer processor | Institution that processes payments and card transactions on behalf of the merchant, performing the technical operations necessary to communicate with authorization and settlement entities. Often acquiring processors are a single entity with acquirer banks. | |
| Acquiring Bank (Merchant’s Bank) | A bank that is an authorized member of Visa & MasterCard that provides merchant accounts, allowing them to accept payments. Often acquiring banks are a single entity with acquirer processors. | |
| ACS | Access Control Server | Server used by the issuing bank to be sent a OTP or code during 3DS authentication to carry out the verification of the cardholder’s identity |
| Adjustment | Adjustments are triggered to adjust the wallet from a previous transaction to either deduct a missing amount or to load money. This means they are not transactions on their own, but they work as notifications to the wallet to balance the card. | |
| Advice | Advice message that an action has taken place; receiver can only accept, not reject. | |
| AFD | Automated Fuel Dispensers | Automated Fuel Dispensers (AFD) are unattended terminals at fuel stations that allow cardholders to purchase fuel without requiring an attendant |
| AID | Application Identifier | An AID is used to uniquely identify each EMV application that a terminal supports; every AID has an associated card scheme and parameters relating to how the application needs to be processed. |
| AIP | Application Interchange Profile | The AIP indicates which steps (e.g. cardholder verification, data authentication) are supported and which should be applied a transaction. |
| AML | Anti-Money Laundering | A set of laws, regulations, and procedures intended to prevent criminals from disguising illegally obtained funds as legitimate income. |
| API | Application Programme Interface | APIs are software applications used to develop other apps that connect to other firms’ pre-existing technology. APIs allow communication and sharing of features between different software. APIs are used in banking systems to provide a smooth experience using a wide set of functions to clients. |
| Arbitration chargeback | An arbitration chargeback is the second and final chargeback process. This happens when a second presentment is received from the merchant but the cardholder is still disputing/querying the transaction. | |
| ARPC | Authorisation Response Cryptogram | Code generated by the card issuer in response to a ARQC to provide authorisation for payment. The code is sent to the POS to authorise the transaction. |
| ARQC | Authorisation Request Cryptogram | Code generated by an EMV card upon request from a POS terminal, which is sent to the card issuer to obtain authorisation for a payment. |
| ARR | Annual Recurring Revenue | All ongoing revenue for a product or business, or from a specific client, projected over one year. |
| ASI | Account Status Inquiry | Account Status Inquiry means an authorisation to validate a Card with no subsequent settlement |
| Assessment | The fee per transaction that networks charge to both issuing and acquiring banks. | |
| ASV | Approved Scanning Vendore | An organization, that uses a set of data security services and tools to determine if a company is compliant with PCI DSS external scanning requirements |
| ATC | Application Transaction Counter | A counter, maintained by the chip card application (incremented by the chip), that provides a sequential reference to each transaction. |
| ATM | Automated Teller Machine | An electronic banking outlet that allows customers to complete basic transactions without the aid of in person interaction. The majority of ATM’s are accessible by anyone with a credit or debit card. |
| ATM Interchange Fee | This is a fee, determined by the ATM network, paid by the cardholder for an ATM transaction. | |
| Authorization Code | A numeric or alphanumeric code sent by the card issuer verifying that the sale has been authorized (approved). An authorisation code is usually a four to six-digit number. | |
| Authorization | The step of a transaction that follows authentication, in which the transaction is either authorised or rejected based on parameters such as spend limit, funds availability etc. | |
| Auto reversal | A auto reversal is when funds are credited back to the customer’s card from a previously debited transaction. A auto reversal is processed when a merchant voids the transaction. There is no waiting period for this as it is reversed immediately | |
| AVS | Address Verification Service | A fraud prevention system that verifies that the address entered by the customer is associated with the cardholder's credit card account, and can help limit fraud and chargebacks. |
| AWK | Acquirer Working Key | A data-encrypting key used to encrypt PIN data between the service provider and acquiring bank |
| Banknet | Mastercard’s processing system for receiving and exchanging transaction requests, a global proprietary network with thousands of nodes spread around the world, capable of processing millions of transactions per hour. | |
| Batch Processing | The action of processing transactions together at one time (in a batch) as opposed to individually (one at a time). Typically, batch processing occurs in situations where a cardholder signs up to be billed on a regular basis. This could be a monthly cable TV bill, insurance bill, or subscription service. | |
| BCP | Business Continuity Planning | A set of organisational procedures that allows the identification of the threats to which a company is exposed and which defines how an emergency situation or interruption of activities must be managed, in order to minimize the impact on the company and maintain production capacity and brand positioning. |
| Billing Cycle | Period of 28 to 31 days between a credit card’s statement dates. All the transactions completed during a billing cycle impact on that cycle’s statement | |
| BIN | Bank Identification Number | This is the initial four to six numbers that appear on a credit/debit card (i.e. the initial 4 to 6 digits of a PAN). This number uniquely identifies the network and the institution issuing the card. The moment a card is swiped at a store, the system knows exactly which bank issued the card being used and can route the transaction accordinglly. |
| BIN Range | A list of card numbers associated to a BIN that a financial institution can issue. Multiple issuers could share the same BIN (i.e. they share the same BIN Sponsor), so the possible digit combinations starting with the same BIN are divided in ranges and assigned to the different issuers to prevent repetition of card numbers. For example, a Mastercard BIN range could be all cards with numbers ranging from 5637 6800 0000 0000 to 5637 6800 0000 1000. However, note that a BIN range is not necessarily made of consecutive numbers. | |
| BIN Sponsorship | A network-approved compliant connection between a financial institution and a network scheme, enabling the former to execute transactions via the network. A BIN sponsorship allows Neobanks, Fintechs and Telcos process payments through a TPP (third-party provider) that is a direct scheme member (i.e. has an established partnership with the networks). Without a BIN sponsorship, it is not possible to issue open-loop cards that use the network schemes (Mastercard, Visa etc.) | |
| BIP/BPS | Basis Points | Basis points are fractions of the monetary value of a transactions, and are used to calculate transaction fees or fraud losses. One basis point is equavalent to 0.0001 in decimal form |
| Breakeven | The point at which a company stops operating at a loss and starts making profits. | |
| CAC | Client Acquisition Cost | The amount of money spent to acquire a client (e.g. through marketing campaigns, sales meetings, events etc.). |
| CAGR | Componund Annual Growth Rate | The mean annual growth rate of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year. |
| Capture | The completion of a transaction and subsequent initiation of the fund transfer request by the merchant. | |
| Card API | The Card API is a prepaid card management interface that enables you to instantly generate and issue virtual and/or physical cards. These cards are funded from a stored value account and are loaded as a balance on the card | |
| Card Fraud | A person or thing that utilises payment cards for the purpose of personal gain by wrongful and criminal means or deceit, typically for some form of personal financial gain | |
| Card Spend Controls | The check on rules set for a specific card that limit how and when it can be used. Examples of possible rules are the maximum amount per transaction, the merchant’s ID, the maximum monthly spend etc. | |
| Cardholder | The individual to whom the card is issued or who is authorized to use an issued card. | |
| Card-Swiped Transaction | A transaction where a card is read by a magnetic stripe card reader. | |
| CARR | Committed Annual Recurring Revenue | The amount of revenue earned from a client in a year, by contract. This parameter is highly important: since it is defined in a legal contract with a client, it represents money that a business is guaranteed to earn from them over the year. The total CARR of a company is the sum of the CARRs from all their clients. |
| CASA | Checking and Savings Account | Checking accounts are accounts for accessing money on demand for day to day use; Savings accounts are intended for longer-term deposit and investment. |
| CAVV | Cardholder Authentication Verification Value | This is the value passed from Merchant to Issuer in order to validate the 3DS VISA transaction. |
| CDCVM | Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method | Indicates whether a a device has CDCVM capabilities - allow users to verify their identities such as PIN entry or biometric authentication. |
| Chargeback | The reversal of a funds transfer, so that the funds are returned to the cardholder. A transaction may be returned because it was non-compliant with association rules and regulations or because it was disputed by the cardholder. | |
| Check Digit | A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. | |
| Checksum | To ensure that transactions are secure, Paymentology Sprint uses a checksum-based authentication method (SHA256) to ensure the validity of processes. The checksum is generated mostly from the data in the terminalID and checksum field, which is included in every single API call | |
| CIF | Cards in Force | The total number of credit or debit cards issued by a financial institution that are presently active and in use by cardholders. |
| Clearing | A clearing transaction follows a successful authorization (typically the following day) and involves the transfer of information pertaining to card-based transactions (clearing) and the exchange of monetary value (settlement). | |
| Closed-loop | Closed loop mobile payments are those that enable consumers to load money into a spending account that is linked to a payment device – for example, a gift card for a specific company, without being linked to a personal account or wallet. Closed loop payments require a prepaid amount to be present in the payment device. | |
| CMS | Credentials Management System | Software used for issuing and managing credentials of users. |
| CNP | Card Not Present - is a payment card transaction made where the cardholder does not or cannot physically present the card for a merchant's visual examination at the time that an order is given and payment effected | |
| COF | Card on File | When a business, with the cardholder's consent, stores the payment card data. |
| Companion API | A Companion card is a card that is linked to a store of value like a wallet or a bank account. The customer's card balance sits within the store of value and not on the card. You can issue physical, virtual and digital-first cards with this API | |
| CR | Credit | In banking, credit refers to the transactions that increase the account balance |
| Credit (Refund) | A transaction where the merchant sends money to the cardholder's account, usually because the cardholder has returned the merchandise. Credit transactions appear on the cardholder's statement. | |
| Credit card | A credit card is a thin rectangular piece of plastic or metal issued by a bank or financial services company that allows cardholders to borrow funds with which to pay for goods and services with merchants that accept cards for payment. | |
| CTF | Counter-Terrorism Financing | A set of laws, regulations, and procedures intended to prevent criminals from funding terrorist organisations with funds disguised as having another destination. |
| CVC | Card Verification Code | This can also be referred to as the CVV, and is an extra code printed on a debit/credit card, with it being the last three digits that appear on the back of most cards (Visa®, Mastercard®, etc), with the exception of American Express (AMEX), where it is usually a four digit code on the front of the card. |
| CVM | Cardholder Verification Method | Process that verifies that the person trying to use a card is the legitimate cardholder. |
| CVR | Card Verification Results | Bit set in EMV used to determine the results of the card verification process |
| CVV | Card Verification Value | This can also be referred to as the CVC, and is an extra code printed on a debit/credit card, with it being the last three digits that appear on the back of most cards (Visa®, Mastercard®, etc), with the exception of American Express (AMEX), where it is usually a four digit code on the front of the card. |
| D&A | Depreciation and Amortization | Depreciation refers to the decrease in the value of tangible assets: assets with a physical form and a specific lifecycle (e.g. production equipment, office equipment, and other types of property). Amortization refers to the decrease in the value of intangible assets (e.g. brand recognition, intellectual property, copyrights, franchise rights, and patents). |
| DAC | MC Digital Activity Customer / Wallet Provider | Role appointed by MasterCard to partner companies allowing them to make technical and commercial services available to third parties who wish to enable digital payments systems. |
| Dashboard | Dashboards are pages that present overviews and stats of the systems in use at Paymentology, allowing the analysis of how our systems are functioning, and to build baselines for comparing against current performance. Once we have a through understanding of the data, and an idea of how our systems perform, we can start building thresholds for expected performance. We can also setup alarms and pager duty alarms to alert us when something is wrong. | |
| DE | Data Element | Basic unit of data that carries information. |
| Debit card | A debit card is a payment card that deducts money directly from a consumer’s checking account when it is used. | |
| Declined Transaction | A transaction that was not approved by the card issuer | |
| DEX | Direct Access | A direct point of connection that enables issuer processors to connect with Visa. A DEX is a closed, private, TCP/IP-based connection to VisaNet. |
| Digital Wallet | Apps that store digital payment credentials without the need of a physical card. | |
| Digital-First | This is a numberless digital card which can be printed to plastic later | |
| Dispute | A dispute happens when a cardholder challenges the validity of a transaction. Examples of reasons for a dispute could be unauthorised purchase, the failure by the merchant to deliver the goods/services etc. | |
| Downtime | A disruption of the normal functionality of a system (i.e. if servers are down) that doesn’t allow transactions to process correctly. | |
| DPAN | Digitized Primary Account Number | Digitized PAN |
| DPD | Digital Payment Data | Data associated with a transaction such as account details, issuing bank information, etc. |
| DR | Debit | Debit refers to an amount an account balance is to be decreased by via a payment/transaction. |
| DRP | Disaster Recovery Planning | A set of organisational procedures that allows the identification of the threats to which a company is exposed and which defines how an extreme emergency situation or interruption of activities must be managed, in order to minimize the impact on the company and maintain production capacity and brand positioning. |
| EAS | Extended Access Server | Visa’s server, available outside the U.S, that collects all incoming transaction requests to their network and routes them to the correct issuers/acquirers for authorisation (switching). The EAS provides secure connectivity to VisaNet and performs authorization routing, file staging, and delivery services. It incorporates open standards with powerful IP technologies. |
| EFT | Electronic Funds Transfer | This is the electronic transfer of money from one bank account to another, via computer-based systems, without the direct intervention of banking staff. |
| EKYC | Electronic Know Your Customer | The virtual/online version of KYC. |
| Emboss Name | The name of a cardholder to be printed on the physical/virtual card is called. Basically, Paymentology retrieves this data from pws_create_card API call and passes it to the manufacuterer in XML format. | |
| EMV | Europay, Mastercard® and Visa® | Global standard encompassing the physical and data processing characteristic of chip cards and other devices such as ATMs or POS terminals, designed to allow interoperability between different chip cards and terminals |
| Encryption | The scrambling of sensitive information for security purposes. PIN numbers are encrypted prior to transmission to prevent unauthorized tampering. | |
| FFT | Fintech Fast Track | A Visa program designed to help and guide fintech and crypto companies bring new payments solutions to market. |
| FI | Financial Institution | Any company or agency that focuses on dealing with financial transactions, such as banks, fintechs, networks etc. |
| FICA | Financial Intelligence Centre Act | FICA was introduced to establish a Financial Intelligence Centre and a Money Laundering Advisory Council in order to combat money laundering activities and the financing of terrorist and related activities. (South Africa only) |
| Forex Adjustment Fee | "If the Forex Adjustment Fee functionality is set then: When settlements are posted to the card statement and it is less than the pre-authorisation amount a fee will be created and posted to the card statement. When the fee is recorded on the card statement it will record as a new fee on the Cardholder Fee report which you can find under the Periodic Reports. One needs to set up a fee in the Transaction Fee pop up in Campaigns settings so the fee is recorded in a Cardholder fee report. In most cases for International Companion Card clients, we do not set up fees so you would need to select one like the SMS fee that you know will never get charged to a cardholder as they will never use that functionality. If settlement comes in for a larger amount than the marked-up pre-auth amount a “Deduct” adjustment will be sent to the wallet." | |
| Forex Fee | "There is functionality to set a forex adjustment to a pre-authorisation amount in the Campaign settings. This is set as a % value When someone swipes their card and say a pre-auth is received for R6.00 the pre-auth amount will be marked up by 10% and will be recorded on the card statement as R6.60. This will get set up in the campaign settings. For a companion card client, the “Deduct” call sent to the wallet side will include the markup in the pre-auth amount sent in the “Deduct” call. So the amount in the “Deduct call is R6.60 Mark off file will show the pre-auth amount send in the “Deduct” call. So for this example, it will be R6.60" | |
| Fraud | A false or illegal transaction which results in a loss of funds | |
| Fusion Reactor | Fusion Reactor is an APM (Application Performance Monitoring) Toolkit that the platform runs on. It is designed specifically for the programming language the platform is built in, Cold Fusion. It allows developers to get insights into the running system as well as trouble shoot issues. | |
| FX | Foreign Exchange | The conversion of a country's currency into another, or the business of trading currencies based on rates fluctuations for profit. |
| Gateway | A gateway provides an interface between merchants and acquiring institutions. | |
| Gift Card | A gift card is a prepaid debit card that contains a specific amount of money available for use for a variety of purchases | |
| GMBS | Global Member Billing Solutions | System that VISA uses to invoice fees to its customers. |
| HCE | Host Card Emulation | Software architecture that enables virtual representation of banking cards using software, allowing mobile applications to provide card payments without the need of a physical secure element (i.e. without the need of a physical chip card) |
| HSM | Hardware Security Module | A physical device that provides security for sensitive data. This type of device is used to provide cryptographic or critical functions such as encryption, decryption and authentication |
| IBSE | Issuing BIN Sponsored Entity | A company that has a BIN sponsorship. |
| ICA | Interbank Card Association Number | A four-digit number assigned by Masterc ard to a financial institution, third party processor, or other member to identify the member in transactions. One ICA can have many BINs registered to it at once. |
| ICC | Integrated Circuit Card | A type of payment card that has an embedded circuit. |
| Idempotency | A feature of APIs that avoids the repetition of the function when the API is unnecessarily called multiple times in a row. | |
| Imprint | The process of manually making a print of the embossed information from a credit or debit card. This is required in a face-to-face processing environment where a magnetic swipe card reader is unavailable to swipe a credit card or a receipt printer is unavailable. | |
| Incident Reporting | Incident Reporting is the process of capturing, recording, and managing an incident occurrence, such as a system outage or security breach. This allows us to professionally and formally communicate the impact of what happened to a client. This also helps communicate the measures we took at that time to resolve it, and the steps we are implementing to stop the occurrence from happening again. | |
| Installment | A sum of money due as one of several equal payments for something, spread over an agreed period of time | |
| Interchange | Interchange fees are fees that a merchant is charged for every card transaction | |
| Interchange Fee | The predetermined amount that the merchant bank pays the issuing bank for a transaction. Visa and MasterCard set Interchange fees based on a variety of categories such as card types, industry types, and processing environment. There is one set of Interchange fees for all Visa and MasterCard acquiring and issuing financial institutions. | |
| Invoice Number | A merchant-defined alphanumeric field that prints on the customer receipt. The invoice number is also required to help qualify a hand-keyed transaction for the lowest possible Interchange level. | |
| IRR | Internal Rate of Return | The annual rate of growth that an investment is expected to generate. It’s a metric used to measure how good an investment is expected to be. Generally speaking, the higher the IRR, the more desirable an investment is to undertake. |
| ISO | International Organization for Standardization | An international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. ISO has published over 24,500 international standards covering almost all aspects of technology and manufacturing. |
| ISO8583 | ISO8583 is an international standard for financial transaction card originated interchange messaging. It is the International Organisation for Standardisation standard for systems that exchange electronic transactions initiated by cardholders using payment cards | |
| ISS | International Settlement Service | |
| Issue | Issue in the platform does not refer to a problem , but to the issuing of a voucher. An Issue can also be referred to as a sale. When you purchase a gift card the card is being issued to you. | |
| Issuer | also known as the Issuing bank is the cardholder’s bank and is responsible for the movement of funds from the cardholder’s account to the merchant/acquirer’s account | |
| Issuer Processor | An issuer processor is a financial institution that is both an issuer of cards and a processor of transactions and settlements. Paymentology is an issuer processor. | |
| IVA | Impuesto al Valor Agregado | The Mexican Value Added Tax system |
| IVR | Interactive Voice Response | An automated phone system that interacts with callers and gathers information by giving them choices via a menu. |
| IWK | Issuer Working Key | A data-encrypting key used to encrypt PIN data between the service provider and issuing bank |
| KYB | Know Your Business | The business equivalent of KYC (i.e. a company doing due diligence on businesses they work with). |
| KYC | Know Your Customer | Also sometimes referred to as ‘Know Your Client’, KYC is a standard in the finance industry that protects both a client and the bank. It enables a bank to know and understand their customer, through their financial dealings and manage risks. |
| Ledger | The record-keeping system for a company or individual’s financial data, with debit and credit account records. | |
| LTV | Lifetime Value | The total amount of revenue we earn from a client over the time they are signed with us. |
| M | Monetary | |
| Maestro | Maestro is Mastercard’s global online debit program for PIN-based debit cards, which has a leading position among PIN debit brands in many markets throughout the world, particularly in Europe. | |
| Manual reversal | A manual reversal is when funds are credited back to the customer’s card from a previously debited transaction. A manual reversal is processed when a debited transaction is still in a pending state (pre-authorized status). There is a waiting period of 7 days before a pending transaction can be reversed | |
| Markoff file | "is a report that essentially has all deducts (authorizations), reversals, and refunds posted per campaign/client. This report can be used to reconcile card transactions to wallet transactions. The client is then able to match these transactions on the mark-off file to the report that the wallet provider sends to them. For example: Orange has a wallet provider, SSPO, who will send them a similar report with transactions to the wallet." | |
| Markup | Markup is the extra charge added to a payment in foreign currency. This allows the system to handle fluctuations in currency between authorisation and settlement | |
| Mastercard Network | Mastercard facilitates the authorization, clearing and settlement of transactions (e.g., credit, signature and PIN debit, prepaid) through the Mastercard Network, our proprietary, global telecommunications network. The Mastercard Network links issuers and acquirers around the globe for transaction processing services and, through them, permits Mastercard cardholders to use their cards at millions of merchants worldwide. | |
| MCC | Merchant Category Code | A four-digit classification code that is assigned by a payment card organization to a merchant/payee. The payment card organization assigns the merchant a particular code based on the predominant business activity of the merchant. |
| MDES | Mastercard Digital Enablement Service | MasterCard platform that enables various devices connected to the internet to be used for commissioning and/or accepting payments, by using tokens instead of the physical card number for authentication |
| MDS | Mastercard Debit Switch | |
| Member | In payments, a scheme member is a company that is an established and compliant partner of a network scheme (e.g. Mastercard or Visa). Members can provide BIN sponsorship and thus connections to the schemes to their non-member clients. | |
| Merchant | A merchant simply refers to any business that accepts card-based payments. | |
| Merchant Agreement | The agreement that governs the processing arrangement between the merchant and the acquiring bank. This typically includes the rates and fees charged to the merchant as well as the terms and conditions. | |
| Merchant-Funded Installments | The merchant paying the interest expense or delaying settlement until the payment is received. This scheme is beneficial to cardholders because it is interest-free. | |
| MIP | Mastercard Interface Processor | Mastercard’s switch system that collects all incoming transaction requests to the Mastercard network and routes them to the correct issuers/acquirers for authorization. |
| MLRO | Money Laundering Reporting Officer | A firm’s person in charge of the company’s compliance with the rules on money laundering. |
| NICS | Network Information Control System | |
| NM | Non Monetary | |
| OFAC | Office of Foreign Assets Control | An office of the US Department of the Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and criminal parties. |
| On-soil | Countries that have on-soil regulations require all of the payment cycle to be executed inside the country. This means that network nodes and data centers must be physically built inside the country’s borders. A transaction request from merchant POS cannot be directed to decentralized networks or to data centers located abroad. | |
| Open-loop | Open Loop Payment Systems enable transactions between accounts at different banks without requiring participants to hold an account with any specific app or financial institution. It is a general-purpose charge card that can be used anywhere that brand of card is accepted. | |
| P&L | Profit(s) and Loss(es) | |
| PAN | Primary Account Number | This number is the card identifier found on payment cards, such as credit or debit cards, along with store/gift cards. |
| PAN File | PAN File is the file sent to the card manufacturer, giving the information (cardholder’s name, card number, security information etc.) to be printed on each card. | |
| PASA | Payments Association of South Africa | PASA is the payment system management body recognised by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), in terms of the National Payment System Act of 1998, to organise, manage and regulate the participation of its members in the payment system. You can find out more on PASA HERE. |
| Payback | The time it takes an investor to recover the cost of an investment. | |
| Payment Gateway | A combination of software and hardware that provides a secure interface to the processing network. | |
| Payment Processor | A company that routes transactions from merchant locations to card issuers for authorisation and settlement. | |
| PCI | Payment Card Industry | This consists of all the organisations which store, process and transmit cardholder data, mainly credit, and debit cards. |
| PCI DSS | Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI -DSS) | Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is an information security standard for organisations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes. The PCI Standard is mandated by the card brands but administered by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council |
| PCR | Processing Central Record | An entry in a Visa DEX’s database that identifies a destination to where Visa can switch a transaction to. |
| Perso File | Perso (or personalisation) file is a file submitted to the Paymentology card generating system, containing the personal information to be added to each card record. | |
| PIN | Personal Identification Number | This is a unique four-digit code assigned to a payment card, usually only known by the card holder. The PIN is effectively the access code to an account for all point of sale purchases and ATM transactions. |
| PKI | Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) | An X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is implemented by Visa for issuing and managing digital certificates to be used in conjunction with Visa products and services. This PKI consists of a hierarchy of entities called CAs that issue certificates to “Subscribers” (that is, end-entities or other CAs) within the hierarchy. The term Visa PKI is used to refer to all of the Subscribers from the root CA all the way down to the lowest level end-entity. |
| A pocket is a “sub-card” on a card, typically used for storing value in different currencies. When a transaction is received on the “main” card, then the transaction is then routed to a pocket for the currency in the transaction | ||
| POS | Point of Sale | This is the physical place/device at which a financial transaction takes place. For example, each time a person makes a purchase in a shop, they are completing a ‘Point of Sale’ transaction. |
| POST | In web services, POST requests are used to send data to the API server to create or update a resource. The data sent to the server is stored in the request body of the HTTP request. | |
| Pre-authorization | A pre-authorization (also referred to as a pre-auth or authorization hold) is the practice within all banking industries of reserving funds on the card until the merchant settles or banks the transaction | |
| Prepaid Card | A prepaid debit card that contains a specific amount of money available for use for a variety of purchases. Gift Cards are an example of prepaid cards. | |
| Presentment | Message from the acquirer to the issuer to confirm completed purchases | |
| Private Label card | A card that is accepted by only one merchant. | |
| Production | Commonly referred to as Prod., Production is the environment in which the solution (card programme) is live and operating in the real world. | |
| PSP | Payment Service Provider | An institution that enables merchant to accept card payments and connects them with the banks and networks involved in card transactions. Examples of PSPs are PayPal and Stripe. |
| Pubnub | Is a third-party IaaS product used for the Transaction Stream feature. Redundancy in case of issues is managed within the Paymentology Sprint network at multiple levels so Transaction Stream data will be delivered with a delay if unavoidable but not lost. If the transaction processing server cannot post to the aggregator service (which pushes the data from the Paymentology Sprint network to Pubnub), queue is saved locally on each individual server until transactions can be pushed to the aggregator. If the aggregator itself cannot push to Pubnub, queue is saved on the aggregator itself until transactions can be pushed to Pubnub. | |
| Pull Payment | Type of payment in which the payee (the receiver of the payment) sends a reuqest to receive the money from the payer. Examples: card payments, direct debit payments | |
| Push Payment | Type of payment in which the payer initiates the money transfer to the payee. Examples: cash payments, bank transfers. | |
| PVK | PIN Verification Key | A key used in an algorithm to verify PINs and PIN offsets |
| QR code | Quick Response Code | This refers to a Quick Response Code and is a machine-readable optical label that allows you to make contactless payments by scanning a QR code from a smartphone application |
| Quasi-cash Transaction | A transaction that is not in cash, but it’s easily converted to it, such as wire transfers, traveler’s cheques, casino chips, cryptocurrencies etc. | |
| Raygun | "Raygun is a SaaS service hosted in the cloud that gives us insight into our application stack when exceptions happen. It doesn’t alert us directly to problems, but if there was a problem processing a transaction or another api call of some form, our applications capture their stack trace and post it to Raygun. We have worked to have all our exception stack traces inside of Raygun and BugLog." | |
| Real-Time Processing | The action of processing transactions one at a time for instant approval. Typically real-time processing occurs in situations where the merchant wants authorisation immediately such as retail and restaurant locations as well as many Internet processing environments. | |
| Receipt | A printed record of a transaction including information such as; merchant name, address, phone number, date and time, amount, approval code, cardholder name, and signature. | |
| Reconciliation | The process of matching the balances in an account to the related statements. | |
| Recurring Revenue | The revenue continuously earned over time from our clients (e.g. the money we receive each month from card transaction fees). | |
| Recurring Transaction | A periodic transaction permitted by the cardholder. For example, a monthly cable TV payment, insurance payment, etc. where the cardholder has authorized the merchant to charge their account on a predetermined basis. | |
| Refund | A refund is a when a buyer is returned the money they had already transferred the merchant, using the same transfer method that had been used for the payment. | |
| Retrieval Request | A request by the issuing bank to a merchant for documentation concerning a transaction usually regarding a cardholder dispute or an improper sale or return. | |
| Reversal | "{In the context of the DeductReversal API} Done when a transaction is not yet settled and is in pending authorisation state." | |
| Rich Data | A collection of data on cardholder’s transactions and purchase behaviors, useful for companies to improve their offerings and predict spending patterns. | |
| Rule Engine | "RuleEngine is a system that allows for the processing of rules for transactions in realtime. It also allows the rules to be dynamically configured by users in the VoucherEngine User. Example rules could be implemented for : A card can only be used in the country of origin A maximum purchase amount And even more complicated rules like transaction velocity" | |
| SAF | Store and Forward | A telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station |
| SAM | Settlement Account Management system | |
| Scheme | Card Schemes, or networks, are the companies that provide the connectivity between the acquirer and the issuer. The most common network or schemes are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, and China UnionPay. | |
| Second Presentment | A second presentment (sometimes called a re-presentment) is the merchant’s opportunity to disagree with the chargeback request. After a chargeback has been submitted, the merchant/acquirer will have X days in which they may submit second presentments. | |
| SEPA | Single European Payments Area | The payments circuit in Europe where individuals, businesses, public administrations, and other economic entities can make and receive non-cash euro payments, both within national boundaries and across different countries, under uniform conditions and legal requirements. |
| Settlement | The delivery of securities or cash from one party to another following a trade. In the card payment industry this refers to the payment of funds to a merchants bank account for a purchase from a cardholder | |
| Shadow | Shadow is the old remote store of value system, where a card is created to “shadow” the client account. The Shadow system has been replaced by Companion, but is still used by a few clients. | |
| SRE | Settlement Reporting Entity | This is the Settlement Reporting Entity. Each Issuer is given a SRE for settlement to be processed. Sometimes there is a Local SRE and an International SRE. |
| STAN | System Trace Audit Number | A 6-digit number assigned uniquely to identify a transaction. DE11 should be referred for its value on authorisation. |
| Statement | The written record prepared by the financial institution, usually once a month, which lists all transactions for an account including deposits, withdrawals, and fees. | |
| STIP | Stand-In Processing | If Mastercard and VISA are unable to get a response from the issuer, they can decide whether to approve or decline the transaction on the issuer’s behalf. This process is known as STIP |
| SumoLogic | SumoLogic is a monitoring tool used to monitor Crimson. All the logs are taken from the Crimson servers alarms and monitors can be setup in a single interface for any issues across all the servers that need to be escalated to developers. | |
| SVA | Store of Value Account | |
| SWIFT | The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications | SWIFT is a vast messaging network used by banks and other financial services institutions to securely and accurately send and receive information. |
| Switch | A tool that routes payment requests and transaction between the various parties involved in a transaction. | |
| T's&C's | Terms and Conditions | The rules, specifications, and requirements of a contract. |
| Testing credentials | This is the username and password which is sent to you when your registration on the Developer Portal has been approved | |
| Throttling | The process of stopping transactions reaching a wallet, where the wallet is not responding to calls correctly or timing out. When a wallet is throttled, any calls to the wallet are rejected instantly, preventing the network from reversing the transactions. When the wallet is responding correctly, the throttle is lifted. | |
| TLV | Tag Length Value | A generic encoding idea. Each block of data contains a Tag (element identifier), Length (Length of Value field) and the Value field itself. There are various different TLV arrangements. This specification uses two different ones: BER-TLV, and Fixed TLV. |
| Token | Token is a surrogate value that replaces a primary account number (PAN) in the payments system. It is used as part of the payment chain and when submitted in a transaction to the payment system. | |
| Tokenization | Tokenization is the process of replacing a card’s primary account number (PAN)—the 16-digit number on the plastic card—with a unique alternate card number, or “token.” Tokens can be used for mobile point-of-sale transactions, in-app purchases or online purchases. | |
| Transaction | Process during which money is transferred between bank accounts. | |
| Transaction Fee | A per transaction amount charged to process a transaction. | |
| Transactional Revenue | The revenue earned from one-time deals or sales (e.g. the set-up fees for a client, which are only paid to us once, when implementing a program). | |
| Truncation | The process of not printing the full primary account number and expiration date on a receipt. | |
| UAT | User Access Testing | Commonly short for UAT environment. A UAT environment is used for testing purposes prior to official release into a production environment. If you have UAT access to one of our platforms, you can explore the various possible options without your changes being applied to the actual platform and engine. |
| VCN | Virtual Card Number | |
| Velocity Limit | A maximum amount based on count or volume or a combination of both. | |
| VexDev | VexDev is the platform’s testing environment, where we can deploy new features that are meant to be tested for functionality, before they are pushed to the live environment. | |
| Visa | An association of financial institutions set up to both issue cards to consumers and businesses and accept cards for payment of goods and services by businesses. | |
| Visa Certificate for Callbacks (Two-Way SSL) | Certificate type that is required for Outbound services/APIs on Visa Developer. The service identifies this certificate as a requirement towards Two-Way SSL. | |
| Visa Developer Center | The website at http://developer.visa.com through which developers can access functional code, documentation, SDKs and sandboxes. | |
| Visa Developer Platform | The set of interoperable APIs (products and capabilities) and tools (Visa Developer Center, SDKs, sandboxes, gateways) open to developers from clients and industry partners to build new applications. | |
| Visa Developer Platform Certificate | Server certificate and required for authentication handshake (verification and validation) with Visa Developer gateway that must add this to your trust-store. | |
| Visa Developer Program | The set of activities (registration, exploration, certification, etc.) and support (e.g., workshops, expert consulting) to make it easier to build and commercialize applications. | |
| VisaNET | Visa’s processing system for receiving and exchanging transaction requests, a global proprietary network with thousands of nodes spread around the world, capable of processing millions of transactions per hour. | |
| Voice Authorisation | An authorisation that is obtained from the card issuer through an interactive voice system. | |
| Void | The process of deleting a transaction (usually caused by operator error). Once a transaction has been voided, the corrected transaction can be entered and processed. | |
| Voucher | A card. Tutuka’s original products were vouchers, so the term voucher is still found frequently in the systems. | |
| VROL | Visa Resolve Online | Visa's online service dedicated to dispute resolution. |
| Wallet | The client API that receives companion or shadow requests. The API will link to the client’s store of value, and approve/reject payment requests, return balance values, etc. | |
| Wallet number | Customer ID; the link between Paymentology and the Client | |
| WOMC | What’s On My Card | What’s on My Card is our portal that provides a convenient way to check the balance and transaction history of a gift card. It includes the feature of displaying statement, stop card, update SMS number, update USSD number. URL: https://www.whatsonmycard.com/ |
| X-Pay Token | API Key-Shared Secret Authentication, which Visa refers to as x-pay-token. To invoke an API using x-pay-token, you will need an API Key and a Shared Secret. For details, refer to X-Pay token section in Getting Started. | |
| YoY | Year over Year | An indicator used to compare the same financial parameter between two years, often in percentage terms. For example, YoY revenue growth expresses how much the revenue increased compared to the previous year. |
| ZCMK | Zone Control Master Key | A type of key-encrypting key (KEK) used to exchange keys between organizations. |
| Δ vs B | Delta vs Budget | The delta (difference) between an actual value and the forecasted one (i.e. the budget, or what was planned). |
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