What Is an Acquirer and How Does It Get You Paid?

If your business wants to accept card payments, you need an acquirer. Every card sale you make goes through one before the money reaches your account.

What is an acquirer?

An acquirer is the licensed company that lets your business take card payments. It sends each payment off to be approved, collects the money from your customer’s card, and pays it out to you once the fees come out.

It usually also gives you a merchant account, which is where your card sales wait until your next payout.

Who’s involved in a card payment

Every card payment passes between five parties:

• You, the business selling something (the merchant)
• Your customer, the cardholder
• The issuer, which gave your customer their card
• The card scheme, such as Visa or Mastercard, which runs the network connecting everyone
• The acquirer

Your acquirer usually holds the contract with your business, so it’s who you talk to when something comes up with a payment.

What happens when a customer pays

The card details go from your checkout to your acquirer. The acquirer passes the request through the card scheme to the customer’s issuer, which checks the card is valid and has enough money or credit on it.

The answer travels back along the same route, and your customer sees a confirmation or a decline within seconds.

Later, approved payments are grouped together and the issuer sends the money through the card scheme to your acquirer. Your acquirer then pays it out to you, minus the fees.

How often you get paid depends on your acquirer. Some pay out daily, some weekly, some a couple of times a week.

What is a merchant acquirer?

A merchant acquirer is the same thing as an acquirer.

“Merchant” means the business taking the payment, so the longer name spells out who the acquirer works for. You might also see “payment acquirer” or “card acquirer.”

The terms “acquiring bank” and “acquirer bank” come from when banks did most of this work, and many still do. So what is acquirer bank? Just an older name for the same thing. Today Visa and Mastercard also license specialist payment firms as acquirers, and many small businesses get card acquiring from one of them.

Why you need one

Visa and Mastercard only let licensed acquirers move payments through their networks - to take card payments, you need an acquirer on your side, collecting the money and sending it to you.

Card payments are a separate service from your business account, so you add them as an extra on top.

All-in-one payment apps and card machine providers either act as the acquirer themselves or work with one in the background, so the acquirer comes bundled with the app. That’s why it can feel automatic.

The other way is applying for a merchant account directly, which often comes with pricing built around your business.

Either way, the acquirer checks your business before you start, because it covers the cost first when a payment goes wrong, and chargebacks are a big part of that risk. When a customer disputes a payment and their card issuer takes the money back, the acquirer covers it first and then collects it from your business.

It looks at who you are, what you sell and how you take orders before approving you.

A shop selling handmade candles is usually simple to approve. A travel company taking deposits for trips eight months away gets a closer look, since the acquirer carries the risk for longer.

Once you’re set up, your acquirer processes the refunds you send, lets you know when a dispute comes in, and asks for your side of the story.

With an Ampere merchant account, you can take online payments from Visa and Mastercard cards issued in any country, and get help with refunds, disputes and chargebacks.

You’ll need an approved Ampere business account first, and the merchant account goes through its own review. Apply for a merchant account

Acquirer, gateway or processor

The payment gateway is the technology on your website that collects card details securely and sends them on.

The payment processor handles the technical messages passing between everyone involved.

The acquirer is the licensed company with the card scheme relationship, and the one that pays you.

Many providers bundle all three, so you sign up once and get the whole set.

What an acquirer costs

Every card payment carries a few separate charges. Interchange goes to your customer’s card issuer, scheme fees go to Visa or Mastercard, and the acquirer adds its own margin on top.

Interchange changes with the card. A business credit card issued abroad usually costs more to accept than a UK debit card, so two sales of the same amount can cost you quite different fees.

Some acquirers fold everything into one flat percentage.

Others use “interchange plus plus” pricing (IC++), which lists each part separately so you can see where every penny goes. Ampere prices card acquiring on an IC++ basis, with a quote built around your business.

Getting set up

Applying for a merchant account looks a lot like opening any business account. You give details about your company and its directors, explain what you sell, and show where customers will pay, usually your website.

The acquirer reviews your application, agrees your pricing, and connects your checkout through a payment gateway.

After that, card payments start coming in and payouts follow on your acquirer’s schedule.

Ampere’s merchant account is available to Ampere business account holders with UK-based businesses, and there’s no set-up fee for it.

Choosing an acquirer

When you compare acquirers, look at which cards and currencies they accept, how they price each payment, and who helps you when a chargeback lands. If you sell to customers abroad, also check which currencies your acquirer can take payments in.