Glossary

Word	Description
Account Holder	The consumer or business who owns the bank account utilized in an ACH Payment
ACH	Automated Clearing House, or ACH, is a type of payment that utilizes a routing and account number to pull or push funds to a bank account. Also called an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) or eCheck (Electronic Check).
ACH Network	The processing network that pulls or pushes money to a bank account utilizing a batched nightly process.
Authorization	The process of receiving a response from an issuing bank regarding the status of a card payment.
Bank Identification Number (BIN)	The first six digital of a card which will identify the Issuing Bank
Capture	The process of finalizing the submission of a card payment.
Card	Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express (or other accepted card brand) credit or debit card account.
Card Data	The 15 or 16 digit card number (PAN), expiration date, CVV, and billing address of the cardholder. Some elements of Card Data are required to be stored securely per PCI DSS requirements (such as the PAN), and some cannot be stored at all (CVV).
Cardholder	The consumer or business who owns the card utilized in a Card Payment
Chargeback	A Payment that has been challenged by the Cardholder or Issuing Bank. Also known as Dispute.
CVV	Card Verification Value, also call Card Verification Code (CVC), refers to the 3 or 4 digit number on a Card.
DDA	Demand Deposit Account is the checking or savings account utilized in an ACH Payment.
Deposits	Money movement from the Merchant Ledger to a Merchant.
Dispute	A Card or ACH Payment that has been challenged by the Cardholder, Account Holder, Issuing Bank, or RDFI.
Dues, Fees, and Assessments (DFA)	The grouping of fees collected from the Merchant or Platform and paid to the Card Brands for costs associated with managing and maintaining the card networks.
EMV	EuroPay, Mastercard, and Visa is a microchip based authentication method utilized for in-person Card Payments.
Faster Deposit	An accelerated deposit to a Merchant
Funding	A Payment that has been made available to the Merchant for Deposit
Gross Deposit	A Merchant deposit that the whole amount of the Payments processed, less Refunds and Disputes.
Interchange	Generally expressed as a percentage of volume and per item fee on card volume, Interchange is collected from the Merchant or Platform and paid to the Issuing Bank via the Card Brands for costs associated with servicing the Cardholder. There are 1,000+ interchange categories assessed based on Merchant type, card type, entry method, and data elements included with the transaction.
Issuing Bank	The financial institution who issued the card to the Cardholder
Ledger	The record of money movement or transfers for a particular entity or account.
Merchant	A business using a Platform's software to move money
Merchant Account	The account created for a Merchant for the purposes of processing Payments
Merchant Billing	The amounts charged to the Merchant for moving money through its account.
MID	Merchant Identification Number is the identifying number of a Merchant Account
Multi-Factor Authentication	Method for authenticating a user utilizing two or more factors. These factors generally include something the user has, something the user knows, or something the user is or does.
NACHA	National Automated Clearing House Association is the entity that oversees the ACH network.
Net Deposit	A Merchant Deposit that is net of Merchant Billing.
NOC	Notification of Change is a noticed provided by the RDFI indicating that information on the ACH Payment should be update prior to submitting additional transactions to the same DDA.
NSF	A Non-Sufficient Funds is a type of ACH return due to the account not having sufficient funds for a particular Payment.
PAN	Primary Account Number, referring to the 15 or 16 digit Card number.
Passthrough Fees	Used to describe the collection of fees that are charge to the Platform and directly passed to Card Brands for Interchange and Dues, Fees, and Assessments (DFA).
Payins	Money movement from a User to a Merchant
Payment	Money movement to or from a User on behalf of a Merchant, including Payins and Payouts
PCI DSS	Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a set of requirements around data security. For more information visit https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org.
Platform	A SaaS platform utilizing Rainforest for payment functionality
RDFI	Receiving Depository Financial Institution is the Account Holders bank for an ACH Payment.
Reason Code	Additional information regarding the nature of a Dispute or Return.
Residuals	The Merchant Billing amounts paid to a Platform after deducting costs.
Routing Number	The 9-digit number that routes transactions to a particular bank for the purposes of processing an ACH or RTP Payment or Deposit.
RTP	Real Time Payment is a processing network that pushes money in real-time to a bank account.
Sponsor Bank	The financial institution who is responsible for Payments activity initiated by, or on behalf of, the Merchant
Tokenization	The process of replacing sensitive information, such an a PAN or ACH Account, with a surrogate value.
Top-up	Money movement from a Merchant or third-party into a Merchant Ledger
User	A consumer or business transacting with a Merchant