Payments glossary · Core
ISO (Independent Sales Organisation)
An independent sales organisation (ISO) is a company that sells card acceptance services on behalf of an acquirer, recruiting and supporting merchants, while the acquirer holds the card scheme licence and the merchant agreement.
How ISO works
In Visa's terminology an ISO is a type of third party agent that carries out merchant solicitation, sales, customer service or training for an acquirer. It must be registered with the card schemes by its sponsoring acquirer, which carries out due diligence on it and remains responsible for its conduct. Some ISOs specialise in particular sectors, and Visa has a specific category for ISOs serving high-risk merchants.
The key difference from a payment facilitator is who holds the merchant relationship. With an ISO, each merchant is underwritten by the acquirer and signs a merchant agreement with it, often with the ISO as an additional party, and gets its own merchant account. A payment facilitator instead signs merchants up itself as sponsored merchants under its own acquiring relationship. ISO onboarding usually takes longer but can suit larger or more complex businesses.
ISOs typically earn a share of processing revenue or a markup on the acquirer's price, and some also rent out terminals. Merchants dealing with an ISO should check which acquirer actually provides the service, who handles support and disputes, the contract length and termination fees, and whether pricing is blended or interchange++.