Payment Glossary:90+ Payment Terms and Definitions for 2026
Understand the language behind payments, approvals, and smart retries.
Learn our 90+ terms
Understand the language behind payments, approvals, and smart retries.
A floor limit lets a merchant approve low-value card payments offline when speed or connectivity matters. The trade-off is higher exposure to delayed declines and unrecovered revenue.
Floor Limitoffline limit, authorization floor limit, zero floor limit
Account Updater refreshes stored card details when issuers replace cards, helping merchants reduce failed recurring charges, protect revenue, and limit involuntary churn.
Account Updatercard account updater, automatic card updater, billing updater
A balance inquiry checks available funds on a card account without moving money. For payment teams, it helps prevent avoidable declines, support partial payments, and limit unnecessary processing costs.
Balance Inquirybalance check, available funds inquiry, balance request
Batch processing groups approved card transactions and submits them for settlement later, helping merchants simplify reconciliation, manage costs, and support workflows like delayed capture.
Batch Processingbatch settlement, batch capture, end-of-day settlement
Dispute resolution is the post-settlement process for handling contested card payments. Strong execution helps merchants limit revenue loss, control fees, and protect processor standing.
Dispute Resolutionchargeback management, dispute process, payment dispute handling
Geographic blocking limits payments by IP, BIN, or address to reduce fraud and meet compliance rules. Poorly tuned rules can block valid cross-border customers and lower approval rates.
Geographic Blockinggeo-blocking, location-based blocking, country blocking
Merchant Advice Code is a payment response indicator that guides merchants on whether to retry, update payment details, use another method, or stop resubmitting a transaction.
Merchant Advice CodeMAC, merchant advice response, merchant guidance code, network advice code
Merchant-initiated transactions let merchants charge stored payment methods when customers are off-session. Correct setup and retry logic can reduce declines and recover recurring revenue.
Merchant-Initiated TransactionMIT, off-session payment, merchant initiated payment
Payment retry is the process of re-submitting a previously declined payment transaction to the card issuer or payment network. This critical strategy aims to recover lost revenue by converting soft declines into approvals, using intelligent logic and timing to navigate issuer rules and maximize success rates for merchants and payment operations teams.
Payment RetryPayment reattempt, transaction retry, decline recovery, payment re-submission, intelligent retries
Queue management controls when payment requests reach gateways and issuers, helping merchants avoid rate-limit drops, reduce false declines, and protect checkout performance during bulk billing.
Queue Managementtransaction queueing, payment queueing, request throttling
Retry logic automatically resubmits eligible declined payments based on issuer response codes and timing rules, helping merchants recover revenue while avoiding unnecessary network fees.
Retry Logicpayment retries, intelligent retries, automated payment retries
Merchant underwriting is how acquirers and PSPs assess a business before and during processing. It influences limits, reserves, account holds, and how safely merchants can scale transaction volume.
Underwritingmerchant risk assessment, merchant account underwriting, acquirer underwriting
A velocity check monitors how often a card, user, device, or IP attempts payment in a set window. Done well, it helps stop card testing without creating avoidable declines or retry failures.
Velocity Checkvelocity rule, velocity limit, transaction velocity check