EN Our Products Payments Engine Payment Methods About Us GLOSSARY # 3D Secure Security standard developed by VISA and Mastercard for the authentication of online card payments. There are 3 parties that are involved in the 3D Secure process: The company the purchase is being made from. The acquiring bank (the bank of the company). VISA and Mastercard (the card issuers themselves) A ABANDONMENTS Customers that walk away or abandon a purchase for various reasons. ACQUIRER/ACQUIRING BANK Financial institution that processes credit or debit card payments on behalf of a merchant as a means of payment for goods and services, and settles card payments for merchants. ADDRESS VERIFICATION SERVICE (AVS) Is a checking method used when the merchant verifies credit card data with VISA, Mastercard and American Express to prevent fraud for credit card payments. AVS verifies the data stored with the credit card company with the information provided by the cardholder such as billing address and zip code. B BACK OFFICE DASHBOARD Provides customisable business intelligence reports that details volume, transaction count, approval ratio, conversation rate, conversion per user (CPU), and traffic. BANK IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (BIN) The first six figures of a credit or debit card number are an identification number assigned by Visa/Mastercard to each of its affiliated financial institutions, banks and processors. BANK IDENTIFIER CODE (BIC) BIC (also known as SWIFT Code) can be 8 or 11 characters long and is used to send payments quickly to the receiving bank. It uniquely identifies the name and country of the bank involved when making a bank transfer BANNED COUNTRY LIST Merchants can specify the countries they would like to exclude from business. Countries can be excluded using billing, shipping and Bank Identification Number (BIN). BILLING CYCLE A seven-day processing period between two billing statements. BILLING AND SETTLEMENT PLAN (BSP) A system designed to facilitate and simplify the selling, reporting and remitting procedures of IATA Accredited Passenger Sales Agents, and is the most widespread system in the world for simple processing of airline ticket sales. BLACKLIST Information collected in order to detect deceitful customers or high risk merchants with purpose of preventing fraud in e-commerce by using filters of negative elements within incoming transactions. Filters are customisable and can automatically blacklist cardholders based on specified parameters and triggers. C CAPTURE A capture is a request for settlement and is the beginning of the money transfer from the cardholders account to the merchant’s account. Funds are not immediately available after capture; funds are available after settlement. CARD AUTHORISATION The permission given by the bank to transfer the cardholder’s capital by verifying the card validity and sufficiency of funds and then deposits into the merchant’s account. CARD PRE-AUTHORISATION Holding the balance from a debit or credit card transaction as unavailable until the full transaction is captured by the merchant. CASE MANAGEMENT SafeCharge’s Case Management is an interactive system. Through this, merchants can proactively collaborate with the SafeCharge Fraud support team, further mitigating the risks of fraudulent transactions. Merchants can independently review transactions, flag users, issue refunds and carry out a host of other actions – all of which are recorded for future analysis. CHARGEBACK A form of protection to the cardholder by the Issuing bank which return funds to the cardholder. A process in which the card issuer can request a transaction be refunded by filing a dispute which the issuing bank makes an investigation into the complaint. CHARGEBACK REASON CODE A code provided to the merchant by the card issuing bank that indicates the reason for the chargeback. CNP, CARD NOT PRESENT Card transaction in which the card is not physically presented to the merchant, e.g. for an order over the Internet, mail, fax or by phone. CP, CARD PRESENT Card Present transactions are those in which both the card and cardholder are present at the POS. C-PANEL The C-Panel interface is the administrative, web-based tool for merchants using the SafeCharge payment page service. From the C-Panel, a merchant can integrate all of their products and services with the SafeCharge payment page. CO-BRANDED CARD Is a credit card issued by a credit card company, bank or retailer which bears the design of a third party company. CONVERSION A conversion is the result of a customer making an actual online purchase. The customer was convinced to make the purchase rather than abandoning the transaction. CUSTOMISED MODULES SafeCharge’s customised rule sets according to merchants’ specific risk profiles. Customised modules address geo-location, banned country lists, payment restrictions, merchant negative and positive lists, velocity of use, and duplicate charges. CVC1, CVV1 Card Verification Code 1, Card Verification Value 1. An encrypted security characteristic on a credit card’s magnetic strip which is read by the card reader when purchases are made. CVC2, CVD, CVV2/ CARD SECURITY CODE A 3 or 4 digit card verification number on the front or back of a credit card that is used in CNP transactions. (Card Verification Code 2 = Mastercard, Card Verification Data = American Express, Card Verification Value 2 = VISA). D DEPOSIT A transaction involving the transfer of money that is put into a bank account or retained in a bank for safekeeping. DESCRIPTOR The way the merchant’s company name appears on a cardholder’s credit card statement after making a purchase. DIGITAL CERTIFICATE An electronic file containing unique information that is securely transferred over the internet using a Public Key Infrastructure. DYNAMIC APM PRICING Dynamic pricing is a unique feature that dynamically displays different pricing for each APM and takes into account any additional costs that a specific payment method will have on a merchant. DYNAMIC 3D SECURE The Dynamic 3D Secure feature allows the platform to dynamically manage a 3D secure flow for suspicious orders based on multiple criteria in the SafeCharge Rules Engine in real-time. E ELECTRONIC DIRECT DEBITS Method in which merchant withdrawals a preauthorized amount from the cardholder’s bank account. The amount is processed automatically from the cardholder’s account and credited to the recipient’s account. ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER (EFT) Refers to the paperless transfer of money from one bank account to another either within a single financial institution or across multiple institutions which is accepted by a customer, merchant or a bank instead of cash as a means of payment. EMV Abbreviation for Europay, MasterCard and VISA is a global standard for credit and debit payment cards based on chip card technology. EPOS SYSTEM EPOS stands for Electronic Point of Sale digital system and is a computerized system that is used to complete transactions in shops, restaurants and retailers. F FRAUD PREVENTION PLATFORM An award-winning risk-mitigation solution incorporating proprietary real-time and manual fraud-scrubbing technologies. A sophisticated self-learning rules engine that can calculate hundreds of rules in a fraction of a second lies at the core of this robust platform. Incoming credit card or alternative payment transactions are run through advanced fraud modules, which can be customised to meet merchants’ unique risk profiles. Each incoming transaction is then accepted, rejected or flagged for review. FRAUD ANALYST An analyst that strategises risk policy and manually filters suspicious transactions. A personal fraud analyst analyses a specific merchant account and monitors activity for any unusual risk-related activity resulting in the adding or adjusting of Rules. FCA LICENSE The FCA license allows a company to conduct business. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA, previously named FSA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom, but operates independently of the United Kingdom government and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. FUNDS TRANSFER SYSTEM (FTS) A formal arrangement based on a private contract or legislation, with multiple membership, common rules and standardised arrangements, for the transmission, clearing, netting and/or settlement of monetary obligations arising between its members. G GEO-LOCATION Using a built-in geo-lP mapping database, this module checks the data derived from each transaction using customisable geo-location parameters. GLOBAL NEGATIVE LISTS Drawn from a self-learning negative database built over a decade, SafeCharge’s Global Negative Lists filter incoming transactions by various parameters for all industries or specific ones, depending on preference. GLOBAL POSITIVE LISTS SafeCharge’s Global Positive Lists filter incoming transactions by various parameters for all industries or specific ones, depending on preference. Positive Lists are drawn from a self-learning positive database built over a decade. I IBAN, INTERNATIONAL BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER Standardised international bank account number (comprising account number, sorting code and prefix) for international payment transactions. IN-APP PAYMENT In-app payment refers to payment for goods or services via a mobile terminal in connection with a mobile application. Customers can store their desired payment type, such as credit cards or alternative payment methods, in their user account and the next time they log in they can make one-click payments. INTERCHANGE FEE Is a term used in payment card industry for a transaction fee that is paid between a bank and the processing of credit card based transactions. INTEGRATION SUPPORT Integration engineers assist new merchants with system integration and testing services. The Integration team provides useful information for implementing SafeCharge solutions, and recommends best practices based on merchants’ unique requirements. After integration, the team double-checks system components, helps merchants set up live accounts, tests accounts before allowing real transactions, and coordinates the go-live process with other relevant SafeCharge teams. INTERNATIONAL MONEY TRANSFER Sending a transfer of money using a bank account or money sent with a debit or credit card. Money can be sent to an email address, phone number, bank or financial institution depending on the company making the remittance. IP/BIN CHECK Method to check fraud patterns for online credit card transactions. The IP address is used to find the customer’s current location or internet access point. (BIN) identifies the card issuing bank and its country of origin. This allows specific combinations of two countries thus identifying whether transaction should to be accepted or rejected. INDEPENDENT SALES ORGANISATION (ISO) An organisation that sells business products or services to merchants and/or acquires merchants on behalf of various types of Merchant Service Providers. ISSUER/ISSUING BANK Financial institution which issues payment cards (credit, debit and prepaid cards) on behalf of Visa and MasterCard. K KYC (KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER) Is a process of a business identifying and verifying the identity of its clients. It is a requisite to adhere to these regulations for any institution that deals with payments and its transfers. L LOCAL PAYMENT METHODS Refers to payment methods that are used as an alternative to credit card payments. They are comprised of non-card based payments such as e-wallets, vouchers, prepaid methods and each has its own settlement process and is subject to domestic rules and regulations. LOYALTY PROGRAMMES Serves to reward a customer who frequently purchases from the company offering the program. Specific marketing campaigns are used in connection with mobile payments for location and/or transaction based customer loyalty programmes. LUHN CHECK Used by some credit card companies as a risk test to verify the authenticity of a credit card number. M MARKETPLACE MANAGER A solution created by SafeCharge that relieves marketplaces from the necessity of managing complex multidirectional payment flows and evolving national and international regulations. It allows marketplaces to outsource a part or the full payment function while simplifying their regulatory compliance needs. MAIL ORDER/TELEPHONE ORDER (MOTO) A transaction processed through either telephone or mail order and the internet. MOTO merchants operate from call centres or fulfilment centres. MASTERCARD® SECURECODE™ A security program created by MasterCard to guard against unauthorised use of a cardholders MasterCard when shopping online. Merchants using MasterCard Secure Code can minimise transaction risks while providing additional security for their MasterCard customers. MERCHANT Term used for people and companies who have entered into an undertaking in a contract with the acquirer to accept credit cards (VISA, Mastercard). MERCHANT ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT Each merchant is assigned a personal Account Manager who ensures that all needs are met. The Ac-count Manger notiﬁes merchants of new/updated products and services via newsletters and emails, and helps merchants better connect with various SafeCharge departments and teams including tech support, risk, compliance, ﬁnance and management. MERCHANT APPLICATION FORM (MAF) The form used to obtain the merchant information in order to begin processing payments within the company. It includes the following fields: information about the company, directors and owners, personal details about the applicant’s business model, bank account details, processing information, desired integration type and currency. MERCHANT BANK A bank that is licensed as a member of VISA/Mastercard that deals with commercial loans and investments and provides merchants with an account and therefore allows them to accept credit cards. MERCHANT CATEGORY CODE (MCC) A Merchant Category Code is a four-digit number assigned to a business by MasterCard or Visa when the business first starts accepting one of these cards as a form of payment. The MCC is used to classify the business by the type of goods or services it provides as well as impact it has on interchange fees charged by issuing banks to merchants. MERCHANT IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (MID) This number is generated by a processor/acquirer and is specific to each individual merchant location that is used to identify the merchant throughout the course of processing activities. It allows a business to be identified by the banks and card institutions in order to accept credit cards on behalf of the business. MERCHANTS’ NEGATIVE LISTS Merchants can import their negative lists to the SafeCharge system when they come onboard. MERCHANTS’ POSITIVE LISTS Merchants can import their positive lists to the SafeCharge system when they come onboard. MICR NUMBER METHOD A check authorisation procedure that uses the bank routing/transit numbers, checking account numbers and check number encoded along the bottom of the check. MERCHANT SERVICE CHARGE (MSC) A fee paid by the acceptor/merchant to the acquirer. MINIMUM RESERVES The minimum amount of reserves that a credit institution is required to hold with the Eurosystem. MOBILE CARD READER The card reader is a mobile add-on device which is attached to smartphones or tablets, turning the device into a payment terminal. MOBILE CHECKOUT SOLUTION, MCASHIER Enhances the mobile experience with easier and highly secure transactions for merchants and their customers on the move, across multiple platforms and devices. MOBILE PAYMENT Refers to payment services performed via a mobile device with the mobile device being the point of sale. MOBILE WALLET A mobile wallet managed via the mobile phone is a way to carry credit or debit card information on a mobile device instead of a physical card. N NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION (NFC) TECHNOLOGY NFC technology is a set of communication protocols that enable a wireless transfer of data over a short distance (near field). NFC STICKER A sticker that contains a small microchip that stores small amounts of information that bridges technology to equip smartphones with contactless technology. NON-BANK In a payment system, a financial institution not offering retail banking services. O OMNICHANNEL Provides customers with a seamless shopping experience whether the customer is shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone or in a bricks and mortar store. OFFLINE CARD TRANSACTION A card transaction which is authorised without contacting the issuer at the time of the transaction. ONLINE CARD TRANSACTION A card transaction which is authorised following explicit approval by the issuer at the time of the transaction. OPEN NETWORK Telecommunications network to which access is not restricted and separates the physical access to the network delivering the services. ORIGINATOR An institution that initiates a wire transfer or automated clearing house (ACH) payment. P PAYMENTS ENGINE An integrated solution by SafeCharge that covers all aspects of Payment Services as required by businesses. PAY.COM PREPAID CARD: SafeCharge’s branded prepaid Mastercard, PAY.COM, provides a virtual card as well as physical card that supports chip & pin, contactless payments and NFC.. Consumers are able to top-up their account with cash, top-up vouchers through retail terminals, bank account transfers and credit/debit cards. PAYMENT AUTHORISATION An authorisation process where the card being used for payment is charged with the value of the product being purchased. PAYMENT CARD COMPANY A company which owns trademarks of payment cards (credit, debit or prepaid cards) that process and transmit cardholder data. PAYMENTS PLATFORM (“GATEWAY”) A connectivity hub that links merchants to a network of acquiring banks as well as global and local alternative payment providers. A payment platform also provides merchants with transaction management, reporting and billing services. PAYMENT PAGE (“CHECKOUT PAGE”) In order to make a deposit or payment, customers input data into an online web based payment page (checkout page), hosted by SafeCharge. PAY-IN The capability of accepting payments while being compliant to all the regulatory norms. PAY-OUT The capability of paying out to one or more entities of businesses while being compliant to all the regulatory norms. PAYMENT RESTRICTIONS Payment limits can be customised based on the merchant’s business model, based on transaction elements, per single transaction, or per aggregate transactions over a predetermined time frame and other factors. PCI DSS PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is a security standard created jointly by VISA, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, and is a widely accepted set of policies and procedures used to optimise the secureness of credit, debit and cash card transactions and protect cardholders against misuse of their personal information. PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (PIN) A number which is allocated to a single card that enables the cardholder to confirm a POS payment or access to their account at a POS terminal. PHISHING The activity of defrauding an online account holder (password harvesting fishing) by using fictitious websites and posing as a legitimate company. PIN PAD Is an electric devices that enables a cardholder to enter his or her personal identification number (PIN) at a terminal. PLATFORM INTEGRATION Integration of the checkout page and Payments Platform to industry-specific platforms. POINT-OF- SALE (POS) The location where the customer makes a purchase. POINT-OF-SALE SYSTEM An electronic system that accepts financial data and transmits that data to a computer or authorisation network for reporting activity, authorisation and transaction logging. POS TERMINAL An electronic device placed in a merchant location that is connected to the bank’s system or authorisation service provider via telephone lines and is designed to authorise, record and forward data by electronic means for each sale. PRE-ARBITRATION Pre-arbitration, also known as second chargeback, occurs when the merchant disputes the initial chargeback of the cardholder, and the cardholder does not agree with the merchant, which results in the chargeback being disputed again. PREPAID CARD A card on which a monetary value can be loaded in advance and stored either on the card itself or on a dedicated account on a computer. These funds can be used by a cardholder to make purchases. The card has all the features of a standard credit card and mostly licensed by VISA or Mastercard on a prepaid basis. PROCESSOR An entity in the credit card processing network that handles the posting of transactions for authorisation, clearing and settlement to consumer credit card accounts at the card associations and the settlement of funds to merchant bank accounts. Processors may also provide merchants with billing and reporting services. PSP, PAYMENT SERVICE PROVIDER A company which receives electronic payment transactions for merchants by a variety of payment methods and authenticates the payments, processes them also provides the merchant with the corresponding software if required. R REAL-TIME The processing of instructions on an individual basis at the time they are received rather than at some later time. REASON CODE A code provides additional information to the receiving clearing member regarding the nature of a chargeback, subsequent presentment, fee collection, funds disbursement, or request for a source document. RECURRING TRANSACTION A transaction charged to the cardholder (with prior permission) on a periodic basis for recurring goods and services, i.e., health club memberships, book-of-the-month clubs, etc. RESPONSE CODE A code provided to the merchant by the card issuing bank that indicates the results of a transaction request; if declined, the reason why the transaction was rejected. REVERSAL A reversed chargeback or refund transaction. This occurs when the merchant produces sufficient proof that disputes a chargeback or the customer cancels the chargeback. RISK ANALYST An analyst that strategises risk policy and manually filters suspicious transactions. A personal risk analyst analyses a specific merchant account and monitors activity for any unusual risk-related activity resulting in the adding or adjusting of Rules. RISK MANAGEMENT PLATFORM A robust proprietary risk mitigation platform with both real-time and manual fraud scrubbing technologies. A robust Risk Management System designed for merchants to provide sophisticated risk measurement, and assist with agile risk strategies in response to new threats. ROLLING RESERVE An account that holds a certain portion of a merchant’s processing amount to cover potential costs incurred from high-risk or chargeback transactions. The reserve balance is established by withholding a portion of funds from each batch settlement and is retained for a set period of time before being released to the merchant. RULES ENGINE SafeCharge’s Rules Enging can calculate hundreds of rules in a fraction of a second for incoming credit card or alternative payment transactions. These transactions are run through advanced fraud modules, which can be customised to meet merchants’ unique risk profiles. S SAAS, SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE Demand-orientated provision of software applications (download). SANDBOX The SafeCharge Sandbox provides merchants with a testing environment. All functions will behave the same on production servers as they would do in the Sandbox environment. SEPA, SINGLE EURO PAYMENTS AREA Is a European initiative that refers to the euro payment which allows electronic payments across the Euro area (currently comprised of 32 countries) to be as easy as a domestic payment when processing via credit/debit card and making bank transfers or direct debits. SETTLEMENT Is the process of depositing a payment transaction with the acquirer. SHOPPING CART A shopping cart allows visitors of an Internet site to select items for eventual purchase and provides online retailers a complete solution to run their online shop. SMART ROUTING Intelligent routing of merchant payments to the facility that has the highest probability of authorizing a specific transaction. SWIFT CODE Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication: A SWIFT payment message is an instruction to transfer funds; the exchange of funds (settlement) subsequently takes place over a payment system or through correspondent banking relationships. An 8 or 11 digit international bank sorting code issued by SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) to identify a bank in international payment transactions. T TOKENISATION By descoping PCI DSS, SafeCharge offers tokenisation as one of its options for secure storage of sensitive credit card details. These details are stored in vault where they are encrypted and a token is generated. Tokenisation prevents hackers from stealing sensitive payment information from merchants, since the credit card numbers are no longer in the merchant’s database. TRANSACTION Any event that causes a change in an organisation’s financial position or net worth, resulting from normal activity. One example of a transaction is the process that takes place when a cardholder makes a purchase with a credit card. TRANSACTION CURRENCY Currency in which a transaction is performed such as Dollars, Euro, British Pound. TRANSACTION DATE The actual date on which a transaction occurs. Used in recording and tracking transactions. TRANSACTION FEES Service costs charged to a merchant on a per-transaction basis. TRANSACTION ID A unique identification value assigned to each transaction processed through the payment gateway. This ID may be used to search for or to sort transactions. U UNDERWRITING The process of evaluating an applicant’s financial history and credit trustworthiness to determine whether to grant or deny a service account. UNIQUE USER PROFILES SafeCharge’s Personalised Cashier stores a customer’s unique suer profile information, thereby enabling one-click payments for returning customers and relieving merchants of their PCI burden. V VERIFIED BY VISA INC. A security program created by Visa to provide identity authentication for cardholders and transaction protection for merchants. By registering for Verified by Visa, merchants can minimise the risk of chargebacks and returns while providing additional security for their Visa customers. VIRTUAL CARD A payment card that only comprises a card number, a validity period and a security code, and which can only be used in distance transactions (internet, MOTO payments) due to the magnetic strip and EMV chip. VIRTUAL TERMINAL Internet assisted user interface for payment acceptance and is the web version of a physical credit card terminal or POS machine. Allows direct payment acceptance without signature and can be accessed from any internet connect web browser. VOID TRANSACTIONS Transactions of this type are used to cancel original charge transactions that have not yet been submitted for batch settlement and are different from a refund. No money was actually transmitted to the merchant from the cardholder account. W WHITE LABEL SOLUTION Fully supported product or service made by one company and sold by another using the selling companies corporate design and offered under their own name. WITHDRAWAL The ability for a customer to take money out of an account. PRODUCTS Online Payment Pages Point of Sale Marketplace Manager Reconciliation Manager Identity Manager PLATFORM Payments Engine Risk Management Reporting and Analytics Infrastructure Integration ABOUT Our Company Licenses and Certification Customers Newsroom Contact Careers RESOURCE CENTER Blog White Papers Glossary STAY CONNECTED Contact us Subscribe to newsletter Privacy Policy Terms of use SafeCharge Limited is an Electronic Money Institution authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Cyprus and is a principal member of Mastercard, Visa and Unionpay International (CUP). 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