What is acquiring?

[CarderPlanet]

Literally translated from English, the word “acquiring” (acquire) means “to acquire” or “receive”. In modern Russian, the definition of acquiring is closely related to the activities of financial institutions and is the acceptance of bank cards to pay for goods or services. Thus, acquiring allows you to make purchases on the Internet without using a cache. A bank that has received a license to provide acquiring services is called an acquirer. Bank acquiring (servicing payments by plastic cards) is carried out through special payment terminals. The opening of such terminals is most often observed on the territory of popular trade or service enterprises:

• shopping centers;
• shops;
• restaurant chains;
• car gas stations.

According to reviews, the conclusion of agreements between the subjects of trade with acquiring banks makes the process of non-cash purchases as simple and safe as possible. To ensure the connection between accepting cards and cash registers, PIN-pads can be installed in retail outlets. Mobile compact terminals are common today. Not physically tied to the office, these bank terminals can move to different geographic locations, for example, by courier, accepting payments everywhere along the way.

Internet acquiring and its features​

In connection with the increase in the rating of e-commerce in modern business, over the past few years, Internet acquiring has gained particular popularity. The service implies acceptance for the calculation of personalized bank cards (Visa, MasterCard) online, allowing you to buy, including on credit, goods via the Internet.

The indisputable advantages of Internet acquiring include:

• simplicity;
• convenience;
• safety.

To implement Internet acquiring services, banking institutions acting as acquirers and processing centers use software - an interface through which cardholders can make payments on the websites of online stores and various virtual services. A particularly popular option is payment modules - ready-made software and hardware solutions adapted for installation on the most popular website builders and content management systems (Wordpress, Joomla) today. As a rule, they have extremely simple installation instructions and do not require the participation of professional programmers.

For the buyer to make a payment to the online store and receive the payment by the seller, no auxiliary devices are required - only access to the network. Internet acquiring fully fits into the standard of classical bank acquiring, including in terms of accounting and transactions. The only difference is that the data of the plastic bank card is not read by the physical card reader of the terminal installed in the store, but is entered by the payer independently into the provided secure form on the website of the online store. In fact, anyone with Internet access, even from a phone and a plastic card, can make a purchase with just a few clicks. Expenditure transactions are provided with a high degree of protection for the acquirer.

How are Internet acquiring tariffs formed?​

The Internet acquiring rate, that is, the commission for the services of the acquiring bank, is determined by many factors. As a rule, the cost of servicing an acquiring bank depends on such characteristics of an online business as:

• scope of the company;
• the turnover of non-cash payments on the website of a virtual point of sale;
• geography of buyers of the online store.

The commission that is taken for Internet acquiring services often has three components, which include the percentage of the acquiring bank, the money part of the processing center and the price set by international payment systems.