Acquiring
Payment gateway
A technical layer that encrypts card data, forwards authorisation requests to an acquirer, and returns the result to the merchant.
A pure gateway does not hold the merchant account, it's the wire between checkout and acquirer. Many gateways now bundle vaulting, fraud, and reporting, blurring the line with PSPs and orchestrators.
Related terms
A vendor that provides payment-acceptance technology, gateway, vaulting, reporting, sometimes acquiring, under one contract.
The licensed bank or financial institution that holds the merchant's MID and settles card transactions on the merchant's behalf.
A PCI-DSS-compliant store of tokenised card credentials that lets a merchant charge a card again without holding the PAN.
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