Acquiring is a banking service that allows customers to pay for goods and services with payment cards.
“According to international analytical companies, 54% of all purchases in 2020 were made in a non-cash form.”
Acquiring services are available to any type of business: organizations, individual entrepreneurs, and self-employed citizens. But acquiring is different, and which one suits your business depends on where you make payments: at a point of sale, online, in app or all of the above.
Types of Acquiring
Depending on the field of activity and the needs of a company, users can choose one of three types of acquiring:
- offline;
- internet;
- mobile.
ATM acquiring (or exchange acquiring) is also distinguished. It denotes payment through self-service devices such as ATMs. This is an independent type of acquiring that is not required for most businesses.
How does Acquiring Work?
The acquiring system in its simplest form includes several participants:
- an acquiring bank (provides acquiring);
- a merchant (activates this service in the bank);
- a customer (pays for goods/services using a card);
- and issuing bank (issues bank cards used by customers).
The scheme of operation of this system is as follows:
- The customer pays for certain services or goods by card.
- Based on the card data, the issuing bank receives a request for the customer’s account status. His/her solvency and the absence of restrictions preventing the payment are checked.
- The requested amount is debited from the customer’s account.
- The acquiring bank charges a fee for this transaction and credits the money to the merchant.
- The merchant and the customer receive receipts with information about the purchase transaction.
In practice, the whole procedure takes a matter of seconds.