Merchant Service
Glossary - I
Glossary Terms
Imprint
The physical impression made from a Card on the Transaction Receipt which may be used to prove that the Card was present when the sale was made.
Imprinter
A device used by Merchants to make an Imprint on a Transaction Receipt.
Independent Service Organization (ISO)
In the payment systems industry, a third party organization that facilitates Merchant registration to accept charge or credit cards.
Interchange
The clearing and settlement system for Visa® and MasterCard® Credit Cards and Debit Cards where data is exchanged between the Servicer and the Issuer.
Interchange Fees
Interchange is a laundry list of different percentage and transaction fees that an Issuing Bank (Cardholder's Bank) charges an Acquiring Bank (Merchant's Bank) to process one of their cardholder's credit cards. A common misconception is that Visa and MasterCard profit from interchange, which is not the case. Visa and MasterCard charge Dues and Assessments on transactions.
There are hundreds of different interchange fees, what is important is to understand that interchange is essentially the wholesale rate that banks charge each other in order to process a credit card transaction. In order to pay the lowest fees when processing credit cards, a merchant's goal is to pay as close to interchange as possible.
Interchange Pass Through (IPT)
A merchant account that uses an Interchange Pass Through pricing method applies processing fees by adding a small percentage to the actual interchange (Wholesale) rate for every transaction and all dues and assessments are passed through directly at cost. This ensures that a merchant only pays the wholesale rate in addition to a small mark-up that goes to their merchant service provider.
Interchange Pass Through is the most economical merchant account pricing in the industry today and is usually only offered to the nations largest retailers, but at MerchantService.com we offer this program to ALL of our merchants.
Internet Protocol (IP)
A data-oriented protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork.
IP
IPT
ISO
See Independent Service Organization
Issuer
A financial institution or other entity that issued a Credit Card to a Cardholder
