What is acquiring and what are its benefits?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

In today's world it is difficult to imagine a payment system without the use of plastic cards. Often this method is much more convenient than paying for goods, services and making various payments in cash. Today, you don’t have to carry large sums of money (and in most cases you can do without them at all) to make any purchase (from a candy bar to an airline ticket or a car), pay a restaurant bill or make a monthly utility bill. All this can be done with only one bank card. It is accepted by most shops, restaurants, organizations providing all kinds of services. They realize the possibility of paying for their goods/services with a card through the use of acquiring. This article is devoted to this concept. What is acquiring and what are its benefits for each settlement participant?

This service is provided by banks to trade and other organizations by installing payment terminals on their territory (otherwise they are called pos-terminals), as well as imprinters. They are designed to read information from the card and issue an invoice to the buyer / client. The acquiring bank receives the request and debits the corresponding amount of money from the client's account. Plastic card transactions are processed in the processing center of the bank. On the basis of reports received by it daily, the bank reimburses the enterprise (to its current account) in which the terminal is installed, funds for the amount of all operations performed on this equipment. Bank acquiring brings a good income to a credit institution in the form of a commission for such calculations. So it's a good way for her to make money.

What is acquiring for an organization? Does it make sense to use this system if part of the cost of a product or service has to be paid to the bank? Of course, it is, and not small. The fact is that this is a great opportunity to attract additional customers/customers who prefer to pay with a card rather than cash. As a rule, they do not carry significant sums of money with them, and the absence of a pos-terminal in the organization can lead to a refusal to purchase (often, buyers do not return to make a purchase or other transaction, but find a place where they can easily accept payment by card). Thus, acquiring (whose tariffs are not so significant for the enterprise) allows you to expand your customer base and increase sales up to 30%.

There are other benefits to usingthis banking service. Thus, the company will always be insured against accepting counterfeit banknotes as payment for goods or services, and will also save on cash collection. And, of course, it will make payments more convenient for customers who do not have enough cash, but always carry a plastic card with them.

What is acquiring on the Internet? Almost the same, but in the virtual space. It is used to pay for purchases in online stores from a card account, as well as when making a number of electronic payments (mobile phone top-up, utility bills, taxes, etc.). It is implemented using a web interface and also allows the bank to earn on the provision of such intermediary services.

There is another option for this type of service. What is acquiring when using an ATM? In this case, this procedure includes the withdrawal of cash from a bank card by a person who is not a client of the credit institution to which this device belongs. The client here, as well as the service provider, is the bank: the first is the card issuer, the second is the owner of the ATM (acquirer).