Payments glossary · Core
Acquiring / Acquirer
Acquiring is the service of accepting card payments on a merchant's behalf. The acquirer contracts with the merchant, sends its transactions into the card networks for authorisation and clearing, and pays the merchant the proceeds after fees.
How Acquiring / Acquirer works
In a card payment the acquirer, or merchant acquirer, sits on the merchant's side and the issuer on the cardholder's side. The acquirer routes each authorisation request through the card scheme to the issuer, submits completed transactions for clearing, receives the funds and settles them to the merchant. It also carries the financial risk if a merchant cannot cover chargebacks or refunds, which is why acquirers underwrite merchants and sometimes impose reserves.
In the EU and UK, acquiring payment transactions is a regulated payment service, so as well as banks it can be provided by authorised payment institutions and e-money institutions that hold card scheme licences. Many PSPs are acquirers themselves; others rely on a partner acquirer and operate as a payment facilitator or gateway on top.
For a merchant, the acquirer shapes much of the payment experience: which card brands and currencies you can accept, how quickly you are paid, which countries you can process in locally, your approval rates and how disputes are handled. Businesses selling across several regions sometimes use more than one acquirer to improve local approval rates and resilience.