Payments terminology

A merchant of record is the party that authorizes and assumes all liability for a payment.

A gateway captures payment information and securely sends credit card data to the payment processor. It is the interface that communicates whether a charge is approved or declined. The physical equivalent would be a credit card reader at a brick and mortar store.

A processor transmits payment data to the shopper, the shopper’s bank, Zonos, and Zonos' bank. It processes the settlement to Zonos' bank.

PayPal is a username and password-protected account, funded by the shopper’s credit card or bank account. Payment is processed using login information, rather than entering credit card information at checkout.

PayFlow is a payment gateway for credit card processing. The shopper enters credit card details at checkout.

Stripe is a payment gateway for credit card processing. It also provides backend financial services to Zonos.

Stripe Connect is a service that provides gateway and payment processing, customer invoicing and outgoing payments, as well as data collection during onboarding.

"Approve no capture" refers to a situation where an order is approved and pushed into a merchant’s platform without completing the payment capture. This might be because no funds are associated with the order (i.e., a manual order), or an 'Own Payments' customer has confirmed that they have captured payment manually post-checkout.

"Own payments" or "Uses Own Payments (UOP)" refers to a scenario where the customer processes shopper payments on their own payment platform.

"Zonos Payments" refers to when the customer processes shopper payments on one of Zonos' payment platforms, like Stripe or PayPal.

"Zonos Fraud coverage" refers to a feature where the customer is protected from fraudulent chargebacks, with the liability shifting to Zonos.

A chargeback is a payment reversal initiated by the shopper that disputes a credit card charge. The card issuer makes the final decision.

A "Claim" in PayPal terms is a buyer complaint, with PayPal making the final decision, not the card issuer.

An "Inquiry" is a buyer complaint within PayPal’s Resolution Center, resolved in a manner similar to an email. It can be escalated to a claim by the buyer or seller at any time.

"Stripe Radar" refers to Stripe’s payment risk evaluation service.