Bank Identification Number (BIN) – the first six digits of a credit card, debit card, charge card, etc. These identify the institution that issued the card to the card holder. Online merchants may use BIN lookups to help validate transactions. For example, if the credit card's BIN indicates a bank in one country, while the customer's billing address is in another, the transaction may call for extra security.

Card-not-present (CNP) – An environment where a transaction is completed under both of the following conditions: • cardholder is not present and card is not present. Transactions in this environment include mail/phone order transactions as well as Internet transactions.

Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2) – A three-digit value that is printed on the back of a Visa card, provides a cryptographic check of the information embossed on a card, and assures the merchant, Acquirer, and Issuer that the card is valid. The CVV2 is housed in the signature panel immediately after the full account number or the last four digits of the account number. CNP merchants should ask the customer for the CVV2 to verify the card’s authenticity. For information security purposes, merchants are prohibited from storing CVV2 data.

Chargeback – a transaction that is returned as a financial liability by the consumer bank to the merchant bank (and most often, to the merchant). Chargebacks can occur for a variety of reasons, including:

• Customer-disputed transactions
• Fraud
• Authorization issues
• Inaccurate or incomplete transaction information
• Processing errors

Credit Card – a card that issued by financial institution (also known as a consumer bank or issuer) for each cardholder that has an agreement to repay the outstanding debt on the card. Visa and MasterCard are the most popular brand among all credit cards at the moment.

Discount Rate – This is a rate of each transaction amount that is typically charged by the credit card company. It also usually includes a percentage for the merchant account provider. The monthly amount of this rate depends on the transaction amounts processed during the month.

Fraud scoring – A category of predictive fraud-detection models or technologies which may vary widely in sophistication and effectiveness. The most efficient scoring models use predictive software techniques to capture relationships and patterns of fraudulent activity, and to differentiate these patterns from legitimate purchasing activity. Scoring models typically assign a numeric value that indicates the likeliness of an individual transaction being fraudulent.

Merchant Account – an account that provided by an acquirer (merchant bank) for the merchants to accept and process credit cards for payment of goods and services.

MEPS – Malaysia Electronic Payment System (MEPS) is owned by a consortium of local financial institutions.

MOTO - Mail order/Telephone order

Online Payment – a transaction of goods and money in any form through the online media.

Payment Gateway – An Acquirer’s link between its e-commerce merchants and the global VisaNet transaction processing system. The payment gateway receives encrypted transactions from the merchant server. The gateway then authenticates the merchant, decrypts the payment information, and sends this data through VisaNet to the Issuer for authorization. When an Issuer response is returned through VisaNet, the gateway encrypts the payment data again along with the response and sends this back through the Internet to the merchant server. The payment gateway thus supports merchant and cardholder authentication, the safe transmission of payment data, and the authorization and capture of e-commerce transactions.

PGP – acronym for Pretty Good Privacy. A cryptography system designed to protect the privacy of personal communications. The system utilises public and private keys; the public key is given out by the user to anyone who wants to send a message, while the private key is kept secret and is the only way the encrypted message can be deciphered.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) – An established industry standard that encrypts the channel between a Web browser and Web server to ensure the privacy and reliability of data transmitted over this channel. SSL does not, however, provide ways to validate the identities or banking accounts of the parties exchanging this data.

Transaction Fee – This is a "per transaction" cost that is primarily related to the gateway and processing the transaction. For most merchants each order equals one transaction. Merchants with large numbers of transactions should look for merchant account providers with the lowest transaction fee.