Glossary - Common Payrix Integrated Terminology

A glossary of common terms used through the Payrix Integrated platform and documentation.

Acquiring Bank: In order for a payment facilitator to get up and running they must enter into an agreement with an acquiring bank or payments institution, which must be a licensed by the card networks. The acquiring bank first underwrites the payment facilitator ensuring they have the necessary infrastructure, technology, policies, and procedures to operate effectively. The acquirer is responsible for receiving the data and money from the card networks, then passing that data and money to the payment facilitator.
Application Programming Interface (API): A mechanism that enable two software components to communicate with each other using a set of definitions and protocols.
Authorised Contact: A contact listed on the account that has permission to request and confirm any changes to the account. Authorised contacts are nominated at the time of boarding and persons can only be added and removed from the list by the authorised contacts and/or listed owner.
Available Balance: The balance of an entity account recorded in the Payrix system that shows the positive or negative balance for fees and/or transactions that have been collected and are yet to be settled.
Boarding/Onboarding: The process of adding your clients (merchants) to the Payrix Platform to utilise our payment solutions.
Disbursements: A disbursement is when Payrix sends funds transfer to an entity’s (Merchant or Partner) bank account. A disbursement happens when a client has specified a custom disbursement of funds/fees using the real-time payment API function.
Merchant (Biller): An entity that can process transactions has been onboarded with Payrix for processing.
Operating Account: The account that receives funding and/or is debited if the Available Balance goes into the negative.
Payment Processors: Along with the acquiring bank, a relationship with a processor is necessary to operate as a payment facilitator. The processor is responsible for processing and settling the transactions that are initiated by the payment facilitator’s sub-merchants.
Settlement: The process of funds being deposited into the nominated merchants settlement Bank Account for the transactions processed by the merchant.
Transaction: Is the movement of money between the Bank Account holder or Card Holder and a merchant to purchase a good or service.
User/login: The login of a user accessing the Payrix system or associated with an API KEY for requests sent to our API.