Payments 101

The Payments 101 series on PaymentsAPI.com was developed to provide anyone with a foundational overview of the various tenders, organizational entities, security & compliance and developer options to understand the payments industry.

Payments 101: What is a Payment Gateway?

September 23, 2010

A payment gateway is a service that facilitates the authorization and processing of payments between a merchant and the customer. A gateway serves as an intermediary between the Merchant and the Acquirer in the transaction flow – communicating transaction information from a website, virtual point of sale or IVR service (for telephone orders) to the [...]

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Payments 101: What is an Acquiring Bank?

July 27, 2010

The Payments 101 series continues to explore the payments ecosystem members. An Acquiring Bank (commonly known simply as an ‘acquirer’ or ‘merchant bank’) is a licensed member of a card association, such as Visa or MasterCard, which accepts card payments on behalf of a merchant.  The acquirer is a bank or financial institution that serves [...]

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Payments 101: What is a Card Association?

July 21, 2010

The Payments 101 series explores the payments ecosystem members. Card Association A Card Association is a network of card-issuing1 and acquiring banks2 that license bank card programs and perform transactional operations on behalf of its members, including transaction authorizations and processing

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Payments 101: What is PA-DSS Compliance?

July 16, 2010

The Payments 101 series looks at Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS). The Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) is a set of security requirements developed by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) that govern how payment applications must handle the capture, storage, processing and transmission of sensitive cardholder data. The goal [...]

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Payments 101: What is PCI Compliance?

July 15, 2010

The Payments 101 series explores PCI compliance, its overall requirements and what developers and their merchant customers should be aware of when choosing to accept card payments. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) is a set of comprehensive requirements

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Payments 101: What is Check Guarantee?

July 12, 2010

The Payments 101 series explores Check Guarantee Check Guarantee is exactly what you might expect based on the name. Simple, right? Acting as a type of insurance for the merchant, Check Guarantee ensures a merchant is paid for

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Payments 101: What is Check Verification?

July 6, 2010

The Payments 101 series discusses the basics of Check Verification Although the use of paper checks has seen a steady decline with the rise in popularity of electronic payments, the 2007 Federal Reserve Payments Study* reports that a staggering 33.1 billion checks were written in 2006. With so many checks still in circulation, today’s merchant [...]

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What is Remote Deposit Capture?

June 30, 2010

Payments 101 provides an overview of an additional service that turns paper checks to electronic checks- Remote Deposit Capture (RDC). Remote Deposit Capture allows a merchant to scan a paper check and remit the scanned image via a secure connection to their bank as a digital deposit. This differs from

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What is Check Conversion?

June 29, 2010

The Payments 101 series explores other services utilizing the ACH network. Check Conversion is the process of converting paper checks into electronic payments. In instances where a consumer presents a paper check to a merchant, the check is scanned or processed through

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