Acquiring

Alternative Payment Method

Also: APM

Any non-card payment method, wallets, bank transfers, BNPL, vouchers, accepted at checkout.

An alternative payment method refers to any financial instrument used to complete a transaction that does not involve a direct credit or debit card payment over the primary networks such as Visa or Mastercard. These methods vary by region and include digital wallets, bank-to-bank transfers mediated by Open Banking, Buy Now Pay Later services, and cash-based voucher systems. Integration of these local schemes often requires merchants to manage different settlement cycles and currency conversion rules compared to standard card-based acquiring. Merchants typically access these via a Payment Service Provider or an orchestrator to simplify the technical overhead of maintaining multiple direct connections. Adopting specific local methods can be a requirement for meeting regulatory standards or consumer expectations in markets where card penetration is low. Because many of these systems involve direct pushes from a bank account, they may influence how Strong Customer Authentication is applied and could potentially reduce the incidence of certain types of chargebacks.