Glossary
Acquirer
The bank or licensed institution that processes card payments on behalf of a merchant.
An acquirer holds the merchant relationship with the card schemes. It sends authorisation requests to the issuer through the scheme network and receives settlement funds, which it passes on to the merchant.
Where the acquirer is licensed affects how a transaction is classified. A payment processed by an acquirer in the same country as the issuer is usually treated as domestic, which can change both the approval rate and the fees.