Archives: Glossary

“Rolling” Reserve

A rolling reserve is what some banks use to cover their exposure to risk on accounts that are deemed to have higher than normal risk. This is a standard requirement from every offshore bank, and many domestic high risk processors. It works as such: for every deposit that is made to you from your sales,

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Reserve

A common practice in which a cash reserve is established by the processing bank (similar to an escrow account) to protect themselves against catastrophic losses. There are 3 main types of reserve practices; the type of reserve employed depends on the processing bank’s system: Rolling Reserve, Static or Capped Reserve, and Upfront Reserve.

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Refund Policy

Written policy regarding exactly how the merchant guarantees products or services sold to a cardholder. Merchant banks require a written refund policy for each applicant, as a liberal refund/return policy may encourage the reduction in the number of chargebacks that a merchant receives. Internet merchants *must* post their refund policy online.

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Qualified

The “base” discount rate that merchants are charged on Credit card transactions that are either (A) Card-present sales that are swiped through a POS and the merchant batches out at the end of the day or (B) Card-not-present, and the AVS is provided. Regardless of the method used to submit the transaction, certain card-types will

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Purchase Cards

Purchase Cards are credit cards for use by employees of government agencies or corporations. What differentiates purchase cards different from regular credit cards is that they may only be used at certain types of merchant locations.

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POS

No, not that kind of POS! A Point of Sale Terminal or POS is the hardware used to process credit card or check transactions in a “retail” or card-present environment. Popular manufacturers of POS terminals are Hypercom, Nurit, and Verifone.

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Pinpads

Pinpads are small boxes with a 10-key pad on them. Connected to a processing terminal, they are used by cardholders to enter PIN numbers for Debit card transactions.

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Non-Qualified

A discount rate that is billed in addition to the “Qualified” discount rate, usually for one of these reasons: (A) a retail merchant passing a card-not-present transaction, or (B) card-present *and* card-not-present transactions made on Government, Signature, Corporate or Foreign Cards, or (C) when retail sales transactions are not batched within 24 hours. The discount

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NACHA

The Electronic Payments Association, formerly the National Automated Clearing House Association. This association controls the regulations governing over 1000 check processing institutions, including eCheck and ACH processors.

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Monthly Volume

The maximum monthly dollar volume a merchant is approved to process in Visa and MasterCard transactions. The monthly volume is important for underwriter consideration of the application from the merchant and also helps to determine what type of documentation will be required with the file. American Express processing volume is typically *not* included in the

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