Good Glossary of Payment Industry Terms

First Data publishes a nice glossary of terms related to the electronic commerce and payment service industry.  Some of the terms are First Data-specific...for example, I stumbled over this resource while trying to figure out what the heck "FSP Merchant" meant.  A quick Google search and a hit on the glossary revealed:

Full Service Processing (FSP):  A relationship with a Bank whereby First Data provides a series of services on an outsourcing basis. First Data is paid fees for the services performed and does not hold the risk for Credit/Fraud losses. 

Undoubtedly esoteric!  But for every First Data-centric definition there are 10 brief provider-agnostic definitions that are helpful.  For example, there's a nice clarification on the various Acquirer roles:

Acquirer:  A licensed member of MasterCard® and/or Visa® (or its agent) which maintains merchant relationships, receives all bankcard transactions from the merchant, and initiates that data into an interchange system.

Acquiring Bank/Merchant Bank:  The bank that does business with merchants enabling them to accept credit cards. A merchant has an account with this bank and each day deposits the value of the day's credit card sales.Acquirers buy (acquire) the merchant's sales slips and credit the tickets' value to the merchant's account.

Acquiring Processor:  The processor provides credit card processing, billing, reporting and settlement, and operational services to the acquirer. Many financial institutions hire a third party for more cost-effective bankcard processing.

While the glossary entries pretty much just scratch the surface, a quick review of these terms can help you sound knowledgeable in client or vendor meetings.

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Update 2010-02-16:  It looks like First Data has pulled that glossary from their site.  Thank god for Wikipedia.

Comments

[Juno888]

..But, it was open and extensible enough that we could quickly configure new implementations for each succeeding interface that has come along that requires SAF capabilities.