LOCAL ACQUIRING

Payments made to commercial establishments or service providers using bank cards follow a process involving consumers, establishments and their respective Banks. A successful transaction must go through two processes: authorization and clearance and settlement. The payments environment is made up of different entities:

• The card schemes. They are responsible for establishing the operative and financial standards that the issuing banks must comply to issue cards.
• The card issuing bank. Apart from issuing a credit/debit card, it is also responsible for paying the merchant the due amount.
• The acquiring bank. It provides a bank account to the merchant on which the funds will be transferred from the issuing bank.
• Payment processors. They are the entities that connect the acquiring banks to the card issuing bank. They are also in charge of processing the payment on behalf of the merchant through.

Detailed process incudes key activities:

• The establishment completes a payment form into Elite Pay with consumer (cardholder) bank card information, amount to be charged, nature of the purchase and payment method.
• Elite Pay sends an authorization request to a card payment processor, known as the acquiring bank, to authorize a debit to the card. The acquirer sends the authorization to the bank that provided the consumer with the card known as the issuer bank.
• The issuer checks the card’s account balance, applies the debit corresponding to the purchase amount and sends the processor authorization and later to the establishment who prints off the receipt (promissory note) for the client to sign.
• The acquiring bank deposits in the establishment’s account the transaction amount less a service fee called discount rate.