What's an acquirer?
Also referred to as a merchant bank, an acquirer is licensed by Mastercard to help a merchant accept Mastercard payments. If you are an established merchant with significant transaction volume, you may want to establish a relationship with an acquirer.
What's an issuer?
An issuer is the bank, credit union, savings and loan association, government entity (such as a postal organisation) or retailer that provides a credit line or a debit card to a consumer or business.
What's Mastercard’s role?
Mastercard is neither an issuer nor an acquirer. Our role is to provide the technology and the network that power transactions.
Step 1: The customer pays with Mastercard
The customer purchases goods/services from a merchant.
Step 2: The payment is authenticated
The merchant point-of-sale system captures the customer’s account information and securely sends it to the acquirer.
Step 3: The transaction is submitted
The merchant acquirer asks Mastercard to get an authorisation from the customer’s issuing bank.
Step 4: Authorisation is requested
Mastercard submits the transaction to the issuer for authorisation.
Step 5: Authorisation response
The issuing bank authorises the transaction and routes the response back to the merchant.
Step 6: Merchant payment
The issuing bank routes the payment to the merchant’s acquirer who deposits the payment into the merchant’s account.
