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Glite Dictionary
🛒 A buyer 🏢 A buying company 🏦 A payment processor
acquirer

acquirer

7.7
A bank or company that handles card payments for shops and businesses
  • noun
  • /əˈkwaɪərər/
  • Jargon
translation icon : adquirente
  • You get me the retailer, the merchant acquirer, MasterCard, Visa and the issuing bank.

For each payment that acquirers help merchants route, they charge a fee.

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Examples

  • For each payment that acquirers help merchants route, they charge a fee.

    Patrick Boyle

  • In an interchange of EFT transactions, the PIN must be transmitted securely from the acquirer (the institution accepting the PIN) to the facility of the issuer for validation.

    Academic text (1999)

  • The acquirer processed the credit card payments swiftly for the busy restaurant owner.

  • When a customer makes a purchase, the acquirer verifies the transaction before it is completed.

  • The bank hired the acquirer to manage their ATM services and improve cash availability for clients.

Synonyms

merchant bank
vsacquirer
  • Specialized
1 5.0

A bank that helps businesses accept card payments and gives money after fees

processes card payments and may also dispense cash via ATMs

Surface Forms

acquirer singular
acquirers plural

Morphology

acquirer = acquire (semi-transparent) = acquire + er

Formed by regular agentive suffixation from 'acquire', but the banking-specific sense ('acquirer' as the bank that processes card payments) is industry terminology not fully predictable for average learners.

Etymology

Acquirer comes from acquire, which has old Latin parts ad- 'to' and quaerere 'seek', the same root as quest and question. So a banking acquirer is literally a company that 'goes to get' and takes in card payments for a merchant.