Payments Explained
Payments, explained in plain English
The words behind the payments — written for businesses that would rather understand the infrastructure than be sold to. By a team including former FCA, MAS and MGA regulators.
Understand
What is merchant acquiring?
Merchant acquiring is the service, from a licensed acquiring bank or institution, that processes card transact…
What is a merchant account?
A merchant account is an account that lets a business accept card and online payments. Customer card payments …
What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is the technology that securely passes a customer’s payment details from your checkout to th…
What is a virtual IBAN?
A virtual IBAN is a real, routable international bank account number issued under a provider’s master account.…
What is a MID (merchant ID)?
A MID (merchant ID) is the unique identifier an acquirer assigns to a merchant account. Every transaction you …
Why card payments get declined — and what you can do
Card payments decline for four broad reasons: the issuer refuses (risk scoring, insufficient funds, suspected …
What is a payment facilitator (payfac)?
A payment facilitator (payfac) is a company that onboards merchants as sub-merchants under its own master rela…
Payfac vs ISO — what’s the difference?
A payfac (payment facilitator) onboards merchants under its own contract and underwriting, as sub-merchants of…
Risk & Rules
High-risk merchant accounts, explained
A high-risk merchant account is a merchant account for a business that card acquirers classify as higher-risk …
What is an EMI (electronic money institution)?
An electronic money institution (EMI) is a firm authorised to issue e-money and provide payment accounts witho…
What is safeguarding? The FCA’s 2026 rules, explained
Safeguarding is the FCA requirement that e-money institutions and payment institutions keep customer funds sep…
Chargebacks & the MATCH list, explained
MATCH (Member Alert to Control High-risk Merchants) is a database, operated by Mastercard, where acquirers rec…
Payment gateway costs, explained
Card processing costs are built from a handful of components: interchange (paid to the customer’s bank), schem…
Get set up
Merchant accounts
Accept card payments
Business accounts & IBANs
Hold and move money
Card machine comparison
Which terminal fits
Get started
Check if we can help
Check if we can help
Tell us what you need. You deal with one team, and the group’s licensed institutions sit behind it.