Total Web Solutions Home | About Us | Site Map | Reviews | Contact Us | Login 

phone icon 0844 856 0681

email icon

payment terms glossary

Glossary

 
Terms
Definitions
Merchant
A merchant is effectively you, the customer.  In this information the term customer and merchant will be used interchangeably.
Purchaser
This will be your customer who purchases from you (The cardholder).
API 
Application Programming Interface - This will allow website developers to call specific functions on our Gateway servers to perform specific tasks such as to confirm a payment has been successful.
Pay Page
A secure web page that can be access over the Internet that asks the purchaser for their card details to purchase goods or services from the merchant.  Each Pay Page is customizable to the merchants requirements and therefore are different for each merchant.
Merchant Account
MA - This is a merchant account specifically for use for authorising payments with an acquiring bank.
MOTO
Mail Order / Telephone Order.  Any orders taken over the telephone or via Mail Order by a merchant and processed through their Merchant Account is classed as a MOTO transaction.  MOTO transactions are carried out using the virtual terminal mechanism in an EcomMerchant account.
3-D Secure
This is the protocol (stands for 3-domain, those being: purchaser; merchant and bank) used to establish that the payment being made is by the cardholder and not someone who has found or stolen the card.  This is achieved using a one time password (OTP) that is sent to the cardholder during purchase.
Payment Gateway
A generic term to describe a business (such as Total Web Solutions) that links the Internet network to the banking network in order to facilitate payments.
Shopping Cart/ Basket
This is a program that runs on a web server that collects information about products or services a purchaser wishes to acquire before passing them purchaser to our payment gateway.  There are literally thousands of shopping baskets out there and Total Web Solutions supports a number of these however if your shopping basket is not listed we will work with developers to integrate it into our payment gateway.
Control Panel
This is an administration tool that is available over the Internet that offers secure management of your Internet Merchant Account.
PCI
Payment Card Industry - Is a standard setup to improve security of payments using credit and debit cards.  The standard is very stringent and Total Web Solutions is accredited to the highest Level 1 standard.  For more information about the standard please visit the PCI councils' web site.
PSD
Payments Services Directive - The Payment Services Directive is an EU Directive adopted in 2007, administered by the European Commission to regulate payment services and payment service providers throughout the European Union and European Economic Area. A new version of the directive (PSD2) aims to enhance security through SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) criteria. See here for more information.
OTP  This is a One Time Password that is sent to the purchasers' mobile phone during an authorisation. This is to ensure that the person making the purchase is teh cardholder and not someone who has stolen the card.