Payments Glossary
A complete reference of payments terms from participant types to transaction processes.
Hard Decline
A hard decline is a permanent authorisation rejection due to a card-level condition like a stolen or invalid card, and must not be retried.
Pre-Authorisation
A pre-authorisation holds cardholder funds without capturing them, used in hospitality, travel, and variable-amount payments.
Merchant-Initiated Transaction
A Merchant-Initiated Transaction (MIT) is a charge against a stored credential without the cardholder present, covering subscriptions and instalments.
Token Vault
A token vault stores the encrypted mapping between payment tokens and card data, enabling secure stored-credential transactions.
Tokenisation
Tokenisation replaces card numbers with secure tokens to reduce PCI scope and enable recurring payments.
3D Secure
3D Secure is an authentication protocol that verifies the cardholder before authorisation, reducing fraud liability and meeting PSD2 SCA requirements.
Refund
A payment refund returns funds from a settled transaction back to the cardholder.
Merchant of Record
A Merchant of Record (MoR) is the legal entity named on consumer payment transactions bearing tax, chargeback, and compliance liability.
Card Testing
Card testing is a fraud attack using stolen card numbers to validate which are active via small transactions.