Financial Institution

Financial institution is any commercial bank, federal or state savings and loan association, federal or state savings bank, or credit union.

Emergency Card Replacement Service (ECR Service)

Emergency Card Replacement Service (ECR Service) is the MasterCard worldwide service designed to provide temporary cards to all MasterCard cardholders that do not have their cards in their possession. This card is issued to a cardholder that needs a temporary replacement card sooner than the typical five to 10 days that it takes to get a permanent card.

Electronic Point of Sale

Electronic point of sale is a point-of-sale merchant equipped with electronic equipment for pricing and recording transactions, but not necessarily incorporating functions for electronic funds transfer (EFT).

Electronic Funds Transfer System (EFTS)

Electronic Funds Transfer System (EFTS) is an electronically based system designed to eliminate the paper instruments that are normally associated with fund movement. For example, a cash withdrawal from an ATM that eliminates the check.

Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)

Electronic funds transfer (EFT) is a paperless transfer of funds initiated from a terminal, computer, telephone instrument, or magnetic tape.

Electronic Draft Capture (EDC)

Electronic draft capture (EDC) is a system in which the transaction data is electronically captured at the merchant location for authorization and clearing processing.

Electronic Commerce

Electronic commerce is the exchange of goods and services for payment between the cardholder and merchant when the transaction is performed (completely or partially) via electronic communication.

eCommerce Transaction

ECommerce transaction is a non-face-to-face payment for goods or services by use of electronic media over a public network (such as the internet) or private network (such as an extranet).

Debit Transaction

Debit transaction is a transaction initiated when a card is presented as payment for goods and services or at an ATM for cash withdrawals. The transaction amount is automatically deducted from the cardholder's checking or other bank account.

Debit Card

Debit card is a plastic card used to initiate a debit transaction. In general, these transactions are used primarily to purchase goods and services and to obtain cash, for which the cardholder's checking account is debited by the card issuer.

Cross-Border Transaction

Cross-border transaction is any transaction on a payment card in which the country code of the merchant differs from the country code of the cardholder.

Credit Loss

Credit loss is the amount lost (charged off) as a result of failure of the cardholder to pay the amount owed on the account.

Credit Card

Credit card is a plastic card bearing an account number assigned to a cardholder with a credit limit that can be used to purchase goods and services and to obtain cash disbursements on credit, for which a cardholder is subsequently billed by the card issuer for repayment of the credit extended at once or on an installment basis.

Co-Branded Card

Co-branded card is a card issued by a member bank in association with a commercial company, typically bearing the brand of both.

Clearing

Clearing is the process of exchanging financial transaction details between an acquiring bank and a card issuer to facilitate posting of a cardholder's account and reconciliation of a customer's settlement position.

Cirrus

Cirrus System Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of MasterCard International Incorporated, operates the international ATM sharing association known as the "MasterCard®ATM network," accepting MasterCard, Maestro®, and Cirrus®brands.

Chargeback Process

Chargeback process is a dispute resolution process that member banks use to determine the responsible party in a chargeback related dispute. This process has three cycles in which the member banks can resolve the dispute themselves. If the members do not resolve the case within three cycles, they must send the case to arbitration. These three cycles are:

• First chargeback (submitted by the card issuer).
  
• Second presentment (submitted by the acquiring bank).
  
• Arbitration chargeback (submitted by the card issuer).