What is an Acquirer?
What is a merchant acquirer? This is a financial institution that provides payment acceptance for the merchant. The acquirer organizes bank card acceptance points (online and/or offline) and provides the entire range of financial transactions related to settlements and payments with bank cards at these points. If you're looking for a merchant acquiring services definition, this is it.
The eCommerce acquirer performs the following functions:
- processes requests for card authorization;
- transfers funds to the merchant's settlement account for goods and services purchased by the client;
- accepts, sorts, and sends electronic documents confirming the payment;
- distributes stop lists containing a list of cards for which operations are suspended, etc.
In general, an acquirer is a payment facilitator that allows businesses to accept payments from customers.
When performing transactions with bank cards issued by other financial organizations, the acquiring bank transfers funds through the payment system from the bank that issued the card to the merchant's account. Mutual settlements between the acquirer and the issuer are provided by the settlement bank in which these banks open correspondent accounts.
