Merchant Services Terms Beginning with M
Magnetic Stripe: A magnetic stripe (“magstripe”) is essentially a length of recording tape that is bonded to the back of payment cards. The magnetic material, coded with individual account information, is later read by physical contact (“swiping”) on a terminal. Credit cards, driver licenses, security passes and even train tickets are all examples of magnetic stripe cards.
Magnetic Stripe Reading Terminal – A magnetic stripe reading terminal is a point-of-sale (POS) machine that reads the encoded information with a magnetic head, similar to that of a tape recorder, from the magnetic stripe of a credit card or other bankcard when it is swiped through the terminal slot.
MasterCard: MasterCard Worldwide is a multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, that facilitates transactions between merchants’ banks and purchasers’ banks when its branded credit and debit cards are used for payment. It became a publicly traded company in 2006, but before that MasterCard Worldwide was a “membership organization” owned by the 25,000+ financial institutions issuing its card.
Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants (MATCH): When acquiring banks and transaction processors terminate contracts with merchants for certain risk-related reasons, the merchant businesses and their owners end up on a list called the Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants (MATCH).
Merchant - In the United States, the term “merchant” commonly refers to a person or firm buying goods at a wholesale price level for sale at retail.
Merchant Account Provider: A merchant account provider is a company that establishes the working relationships between and among merchants and financial institutions, primarily concerning the use of credit cards.
Merchant Accounting System: A merchant accounting system is a computerized means by which a business that accepts payment cards (credit, debit, gift, etc.)
Merchant Accounts – A merchant account is a bank account that is opened by a merchant through a bank or other institution that is a member of the major credit card network.
Merchant Cash Advance – A merchant account cash advance allows a business account holder to borrow true currency against future sales. Unlike a consumer or individual credit card cash advance, in which the amount of cash that is available for such an advance is typically a small percentage of an account holder’s overall credit limit.
Merchant Fees - ”Merchant fees” are more commonly referred to as “interchange fees.”
Merchant Identification Number (MID): A merchant identification number (MID) is a unique number assigned to a merchant account to identify it throughout the course of processing activities.
Mid-Qualified - A Mid-Qualified Rate, also called a partially qualified rate, is the percentage rate that merchants are charged whenever they accept credit cards that do not qualify for the lowest rate.
Monthly Minimum The “monthly minimum” is the specific dollar figure in processing fees that must be generated by a merchant account in a particular month.
Monthly Statement - A Monthly Statement is a printed document and/or an electronic equivalent, displayed on- or off-line, that identifies exactly what fees and charges a merchant pays to a merchant service provider for the use of a merchant bank account.
Monthly Volume – Monthly Volume – or MV – is the maximum monthly dollar volume that a merchant is allowed to process for all Visa and MasterCard sales transactions.
