Payments ISO, PayFac, PSP or Acquirer? How the Payments Industry Actually Works

Quick answer: what is the difference between an ISO, PayFac, PSP and acquirer?

An ISO, payment facilitator, PSP, acquirer, processor and payment gateway can all be involved in helping a business accept payments, but they do not necessarily perform the same role.

This is one of the most confusing parts of merchant services because the company a merchant buys payments from is not always the company actually acquiring, processing or settling the card transaction.

A simplified distinction is:

• Acquirer: provides the acquiring service that allows the merchant to accept and process card payments and receive settlement.
• ISO: usually sells, arranges or supports acquiring and related payment services on behalf of one or more acquiring relationships.
• Payment Facilitator (PayFac): operates a sponsored merchant model that can onboard businesses as sub-merchants or sponsored merchants within its acquiring programme.
• Payment Service Provider (PSP): a broad term that can have both a formal regulatory meaning and a looser industry meaning.
• Payment processor: provides technology used to process and route payment transactions.
• Payment gateway: provides the technical connection used to capture and transmit payment information, particularly for online payments.

The complication is that one payments company may perform several of these roles at once.

Another may perform only one.

A merchant can therefore buy what appears to be a single “payment solution” while several different organisations operate behind it.

Understanding that structure can help explain:

• who actually approves the merchant account
• who controls the risk appetite
• who settles the money
• who provides the Merchant ID
• who supplies the gateway
• who handles chargebacks
• who can place funds on hold
• who can terminate the payment facility
• what happens if the merchant wants to switch.

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Why is payments terminology so confusing?

The modern payments industry has evolved through banks, card networks, independent sales organisations, processors, gateways, payment facilitators, fintechs, software platforms and embedded-payment businesses.

As these models have developed, terminology has become blurred.

A company may market itself as a:

• payment processor
• merchant services provider
• PSP
• payments platform
• payment partner
• acquiring partner
• embedded-payments provider.

Those descriptions do not necessarily tell the merchant which regulated, technical or card-scheme role the business is actually performing.

This is why Merchant Advice Service recommends looking beyond the marketing description and understanding the payment structure underneath the product.

What is a merchant acquirer?

The acquirer sits at the centre of the traditional merchant card-payment relationship.

Under the UK Payment Services Regulations, acquiring payment transactions involves a payment service provider contracting with a payee to accept and process payment transactions that result in funds being transferred to the payee.

In practical merchant terms, the acquirer provides the acquiring relationship that enables the business to accept card payments.

The acquiring function can include responsibility for areas such as:

• merchant onboarding
• underwriting
• Merchant IDs
• card-scheme participation
• transaction acceptance
• settlement
• merchant monitoring
• chargeback exposure
• risk management.

However, the acquirer does not necessarily perform every customer-facing or technical service itself.

It might use:

• an ISO for merchant sales
• a third-party processor
• a separate gateway
• a terminal provider
• a Payment Facilitator
• other technology partners.

The merchant may therefore have very little direct contact with the underlying acquirer even though the acquirer forms an important part of the payment structure.

Read the FCA's guidance on payment services and acquiring.

What is an Independent Sales Organisation or ISO?

An Independent Sales Organisation (ISO) sits between merchant acquisition and the underlying acquiring or processing relationship.

In a typical model, the ISO markets and sells payment services to merchants under an agreement with an acquiring partner.

The ISO may help with:

• merchant acquisition
• understanding the business's payment requirements
• preparing an application
• pricing
• card terminals
• payment gateways
• onboarding support
• customer service
• additional payment products.

The ISO may be the company whose salesperson the merchant speaks to and whose brand appears throughout the buying journey.

But that does not necessarily make the ISO the underlying acquiring institution.

Does an ISO approve the merchant account?

Not necessarily.

This depends on the commercial and underwriting arrangement between the ISO and its acquiring partner.

An ISO may:

• collect application information
• carry out initial eligibility checks
• help structure an application
• recommend pricing
• submit the merchant to an acquiring partner.

The underlying acquirer may then make the final underwriting decision.

Some arrangements involve greater delegation than others, which is why merchants should avoid assuming that the company selling the payment service is necessarily the organisation deciding whether the business can process.

This distinction is particularly important for merchants with unusual sectors, higher transaction values, complex fulfilment or other specialist requirements.

Are payments ISOs registered with Visa or Mastercard?

Card networks recognise third-party organisations involved in acquiring and merchant services.

Visa, for example, categorises organisations performing merchant solicitation activities as Independent Sales Organisations within its Third Party Agent framework.

Visa states that relevant third-party agents must be registered before Visa clients and merchants use their services where the registration programme applies.

View Visa's information about third-party agents and ISOs.

This is a card-scheme relationship.

It should not be confused with FCA authorisation or registration.

Does being an ISO mean a company is FCA authorised?

No.

“ISO” is not itself an FCA regulatory permission.

An organisation that is only carrying out sales, referral or certain technical activities may not itself be providing the regulated acquiring service.

If the business is actually providing regulated payment services, the regulatory position may be different.

The correct position depends on what the organisation genuinely does rather than the label used in its marketing.

This distinction is important because merchants sometimes assume:

“They sell card processing, therefore they must be the FCA-regulated payment institution.”

That is not necessarily the case.

How does a typical ISO payment arrangement work?

A simplified ISO arrangement might look like:

Merchant → ISO → Acquirer → Card Network → Card Issuer

The technical payment route may also include:

Merchant → Gateway / Terminal → Processor → Acquirer → Card Network → Issuer

These are different views of the same broader payment ecosystem.

The ISO is primarily part of the merchant distribution and service relationship.

The gateway and processor are primarily part of the technical transaction flow.

The acquirer sits within the acquiring and settlement relationship.

Does an ISO work with more than one acquirer?

It can.

Some ISOs work predominantly with one acquiring partner.

Others may have access to several acquiring relationships.

This can matter considerably to a merchant.

If an ISO works with only one underlying acquiring route, the provider options available to the merchant may effectively be limited to that acquirer's:

• risk appetite
• pricing model
• geographic coverage
• sector acceptance
• gateway integrations
• settlement options.

A merchant should therefore ask:

“Which acquiring providers can you actually place our business with?”

This is more useful than simply asking whether the ISO describes itself as independent.

How does an ISO make money?

The commercial arrangement varies, but an ISO can generate revenue through areas such as:

• ongoing acquiring margin or revenue share
• merchant-account commissions
• terminal rental or hardware
• gateway fees
• software
• additional services.

This does not automatically make an ISO more expensive than applying directly to an acquirer.

The ISO may have commercial pricing arrangements based on the volume of merchants or transactions it introduces.

The merchant should compare the complete commercial package rather than assuming that removing an intermediary always produces the lowest cost.

What is a Payment Facilitator or PayFac?

A Payment Facilitator, usually shortened to PayFac, operates a different model from a traditional ISO.

Instead of primarily selling individual merchant-account relationships to an acquirer, a PayFac can operate an acquiring programme under which businesses are onboarded as sub-merchants or sponsored merchants.

The PayFac typically takes a much greater role in:

• merchant onboarding
• KYC and business verification
• risk assessment
• transaction monitoring
• merchant management
• payouts
• chargeback processes
• platform technology.

The PayFac operates within an acquiring relationship and relevant card-scheme requirements.

The FCA's guidance on acquiring specifically notes that the regulatory definition is likely to capture “master merchant” or Payment Facilitator models where the business contracts with payees to provide acquiring services.

Read the FCA's guidance on acquiring and Payment Facilitators.

For a more detailed explanation, see our Payment Facilitators (PayFacs) guide.

ISO vs PayFac: what is the real difference?

The key distinction is that an ISO generally helps sell or support the acquiring relationship, while a PayFac has a much deeper role in operating the merchant-payment programme itself.

What is a PSP?

This is where terminology becomes particularly confusing.

PSP means Payment Service Provider.

But the phrase is used in two different ways.

PSP as a UK regulatory term

Under the UK Payment Services Regulations, a Payment Service Provider is a formal category covering organisations providing regulated payment services.

Depending on the service, this can include organisations such as:

• authorised payment institutions
• small payment institutions
• banks and other credit institutions
• electronic money issuers
• other persons defined within the regulations.

Acquiring payment transactions is itself one of the payment services covered by the regulations.

View the FCA's Payment Services Regulations guidance.

PSP as an industry term

Within everyday payments-industry language, “PSP” is often used more loosely.

It might describe a company offering several elements of the payment stack, such as:

• gateway
• processing
• acquiring
• alternative payment methods
• fraud tools
• tokenisation
• reporting.

This means two businesses both calling themselves a “PSP” may have very different underlying structures.

One may be the merchant's regulated acquiring provider.

Another may primarily provide technology while acquiring is supplied by another organisation.

PSP should therefore not automatically be treated as a synonym for ISO, PayFac, gateway or processor.

Is a PayFac the same as a PSP?

Not exactly.

A PayFac can be a type of payment service provider, depending on the regulatory and commercial structure.

But not every PSP is a PayFac.

For example, a regulated payment institution may provide payment services without operating a card-scheme Payment Facilitator programme.

Similarly, a company described commercially as a PSP might provide gateway and processing technology without operating the merchant under a PayFac structure.

The useful question is therefore:

“What payment services does this particular PSP actually provide?”

What is a payment processor?

A payment processor provides infrastructure used to process payment transactions.

This can include:

• receiving transaction messages
• routing authorisation requests
• communicating with acquiring infrastructure
• receiving issuer responses
• supporting clearing and settlement data
• transaction reporting.

The processor and acquirer may be part of the same organisation.

They may also be completely separate companies.

This matters because merchants often use “processor” as shorthand for the entire payment provider even when several organisations are involved.

Is a payment processor automatically an acquirer?

No.

The FCA explicitly distinguishes regulated acquiring from merely providing technical services.

Its guidance states that services such as:

• payment processing
• data storage
• payment terminals
• online gateways

do not, by themselves, constitute acquiring payment transactions.

This is one of the clearest reasons not to use the terms “processor” and “acquirer” interchangeably.

What is a payment gateway?

A payment gateway provides technology used to securely capture and transmit payment information between the merchant's checkout or system and the wider payment infrastructure.

For ecommerce businesses, this can include:

• checkout
• API connections
• payment tokenisation
• 3D Secure
• fraud tools
• recurring-payment functionality
• transaction reporting.

The gateway may be supplied by:

• the acquirer
• a PSP
• an independent gateway company
• an orchestration platform
• another payment-technology provider.

A gateway therefore does not automatically tell you who your acquirer is.

For more information, see our Best Payment Gateways for UK Businesses guide.

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ISO vs processor vs gateway: an example

Imagine a UK retailer signs up for merchant services through Company A.

The merchant may experience Company A as its payment provider.

Behind the scenes, however, the arrangement could involve:

• Company A: ISO and merchant-facing service provider
• Company B: underlying acquirer
• Company C: payment processor
• Company D: terminal or gateway provider.

The merchant could therefore receive:

• sales support from Company A
• underwriting through Company B
• transaction processing through Company C
• payment technology from Company D.

This is not necessarily a problem.

It simply means the merchant should understand which party is responsible for each part of the service.

PayFac example: embedded payments inside software

Now consider a software platform serving thousands of independent businesses.

Instead of telling each customer to arrange a completely separate merchant account, the platform may want payments built directly into its software.

A PayFac or PayFac-style infrastructure can allow the platform to:

• embed merchant onboarding
• collect KYC information
• activate payment acceptance
• manage payment pricing
• route transactions
• pay out merchants
• monitor risk
• monetise payments.

The individual software customer is then effectively onboarded within the platform's payment ecosystem rather than being sent away to arrange payments independently.

This is one reason PayFac models have become increasingly important within:

• SaaS platforms
• marketplaces
• vertical software
• booking systems
• business-management platforms
• embedded-finance products.

What is PayFac-as-a-Service?

Becoming a traditional Payment Facilitator can involve substantial operational, regulatory, risk and technical responsibilities.

Modern payments infrastructure has therefore created other models sometimes described as:

• PayFac-as-a-Service
• managed PayFac
• white-label PayFac
• embedded payments
• payment facilitation infrastructure.

These models allow a software company or platform to control more of the merchant experience while another payments organisation provides significant parts of the underlying acquiring, compliance, risk or technology infrastructure.

This distinction matters because a company marketing “our own payments” may not itself be a full traditional Payment Facilitator.

It may be operating through another provider's PayFac or acquiring infrastructure.

Stripe, for example, currently describes both traditional PayFac models involving an acquiring relationship and technology-led models where platforms can embed and white-label payments using third-party infrastructure.

View Stripe's explanation of payment-facilitation infrastructure.

What is an ISV in payments?

ISV means Independent Software Vendor.

An ISV is not automatically a payment provider.

It may simply produce business software.

Examples could include:

• EPOS software
• booking systems
• practice-management software
• property-management systems
• vertical SaaS
• accounting platforms.

However, payments are increasingly embedded directly within these products.

An ISV might therefore:

• refer merchants to a payment provider
• resell payment services
• integrate one preferred PSP
• integrate several gateways or acquirers
• operate a white-label payment programme
• use PayFac infrastructure
• eventually become a PayFac itself.

This is why the lines between software distribution and payment distribution have become increasingly blurred.

ISO vs ISV: what is the difference?

An ISO traditionally starts with payments and distributes those services to merchants.

An ISV traditionally starts with software and may subsequently embed payments into the software experience.

However, both can now become important distribution channels for acquirers and payment providers.

A modern merchant could therefore buy its payments through:

• a traditional ISO
• an acquirer directly
• a PayFac
• a software platform
• an embedded-payments provider.

What is the difference between a PayFac and a marketplace?

These models can overlap commercially but should not automatically be treated as identical.

A marketplace usually connects buyers and multiple sellers.

Its payment requirements can include:

• onboarding sellers
• collecting payments
• splitting funds
• deducting platform fees
• paying sellers
• managing refunds
• handling disputes.

A marketplace may use Payment Facilitator infrastructure to achieve this.

But “marketplace” describes the commercial platform model, while “PayFac” describes a particular payments/acquiring model.

A marketplace does not automatically become a PayFac simply because it processes payments for sellers.

Is a PayFac the same as Merchant of Record?

No.

This is another important distinction.

A Payment Facilitator helps enable payments for sub-merchants or sponsored merchants.

A Merchant of Record model involves a different commercial and legal relationship where the Merchant of Record is the entity presented as responsible for the transaction and typically takes wider responsibility for elements of the sale.

Depending on the model, this can include matters such as:

• customer billing
• tax
• refunds
• chargebacks
• consumer-facing transaction responsibilities.

A PayFac facilitates merchant payment acceptance.

A Merchant of Record model goes beyond simply facilitating payment acceptance.

What is a sponsor bank or sponsoring acquirer?

Payment Facilitators do not operate independently of the wider acquiring ecosystem.

A traditional PayFac model normally involves an acquiring partner that supports and sponsors the programme within the card-payment system.

The acquiring relationship remains important because it connects the PayFac programme into the card networks and carries scheme and acquiring responsibilities.

This is why merchants and software platforms evaluating PayFac arrangements should understand:

• who the underlying acquirer is
• which countries the acquiring relationship covers
• which merchant categories are supported
• who controls risk policy
• what happens if the underlying acquiring relationship changes.

Who actually underwrites the merchant?

The answer depends on the model.

This is one reason the same merchant can receive different outcomes from different payment providers.

What matters is not simply which salesperson takes the application.

It is whose risk appetite ultimately governs the payment facility.

For more information about underwriting times, see our Fast Merchant Account Approval guide.

Who gives the merchant its MID?

A Merchant ID or MID identifies the merchant within a payment-acquiring arrangement.

In a traditional acquiring model, the merchant commonly receives an MID within the acquiring relationship.

In PayFac structures, merchant identification can operate differently because businesses are onboarded as sponsored or sub-merchants within the PayFac programme.

This is why simply asking:

“Do I have a MID?”

may not fully explain the payment architecture.

More useful questions include:

• Who owns or controls the acquiring relationship?
• How is our business identified to the acquirer and card networks?
• Can the merchant relationship move if we change platform?

Read our Merchant ID (MID) guide.

Who settles the merchant's money?

This is another question merchants should ask explicitly.

Depending on the model, settlement could involve:

• the acquirer settling directly to the merchant
• a PayFac managing payouts to its sub-merchants
• another regulated payment entity involved in the funds flow.

The merchant should know:

• which legal entity owes the settlement
• which entity appears on the bank statement
• what the settlement period is
• who can delay or hold payouts
• how reserves are operated
• what happens if a provider in the chain fails.

These questions become increasingly important for marketplaces, platforms and businesses processing significant transaction volumes.

Who controls chargebacks and reserves?

Again, the answer depends on the payment structure.

Chargeback management can involve:

• merchant
• PayFac
• ISO support team
• processor
• acquirer
• card network
• issuer.

A merchant should establish which organisation:

• receives the chargeback
• communicates with the merchant
• collects evidence
• deducts disputed funds
• sets any reserve requirements
• monitors chargeback performance.

The party providing customer support may not necessarily be the party controlling the underlying acquiring risk.

Who can freeze or terminate a merchant account?

There may be several layers of control.

Depending on the arrangement, suspension or termination could result from:

• the merchant-facing provider's own risk decision
• a PayFac risk decision
• the underlying acquirer
• card-scheme requirements
• regulatory or compliance issues.

Visa's current Merchant Screening Service, for example, explicitly recognises merchants, sponsored merchants, Payment Facilitators and Independent Sales Organisations as separate entities within its merchant and third-party-agent risk framework.

View Visa's Merchant Screening Service information.

The merchant should therefore understand both:

who manages the day-to-day account

and:

who ultimately controls the acquiring relationship.

One company can perform several payment roles

The tables in this guide are useful for understanding the concepts, but modern payment companies rarely fit perfectly into one box.

A single organisation might simultaneously provide:

• regulated payment services
• acquiring
• processing
• gateway technology
• PayFac infrastructure
• fraud tools
• tokenisation
• billing software.

Another provider may brand all of those services under one product name even though several legal entities or partners sit underneath it.

This is why MAS generally looks at capability and payment architecture rather than relying only on provider labels.

Direct acquirer vs ISO vs PayFac: which is better?

There is no universally better model.

Using an ISO may make sense when:

• the merchant wants more sales or service support
• the ISO has suitable acquiring relationships
• the business wants hardware and acquiring packaged together
• the ISO understands the merchant's sector.

Going directly to an acquirer may make sense when:

• the business has significant transaction volume
• it needs a direct commercial relationship
• the merchant has internal payments expertise
• complex pricing or acquiring structures need negotiating.

Using a PayFac may make sense when:

• the business values fast, technology-led onboarding
• payments are embedded within software
• a marketplace or platform must onboard many sellers
• the merchant prefers an integrated payment ecosystem.

Using a broader PSP may make sense when:

• the merchant wants gateway, acquiring and payment methods integrated
• international payment functionality is important
• the business wants to reduce the number of separate technical integrations.

The right answer depends on the merchant rather than the label.

What happens as a merchant grows?

The payment model that works when a business is small may not be the architecture it uses five years later.

A growing merchant might move through several stages:

Simple all-in-one provider

↓

Dedicated acquiring relationship

↓

Separate gateway and acquirer

↓

Multiple MIDs or acquirers

↓

Payment orchestration or multi-provider infrastructure

This is not a required progression.

It simply illustrates why understanding the individual layers of the payments stack becomes more important as requirements become more complex.

Read our Acquirer-Agnostic Payment Gateways guide and Payment Orchestration guide for more information.

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How to work out who actually provides your merchant services

If you already accept payments, start with your contracts and statements.

Identify:

• the company you originally bought the service from
• the legal entity named on the merchant agreement
• the acquiring institution
• the company paying settlement into your bank
• the payment gateway
• the terminal provider
• any separate software provider
• the company contacting you about PCI DSS
• the organisation handling chargebacks.

You may discover that what you thought was one payment provider is actually a combination of several organisations.

This is particularly useful information before:

• renegotiating fees
• changing provider
• changing gateway
• moving EPOS
• adding another acquirer
• migrating stored payment credentials.

13 questions to ask a payment provider before signing

1. Are you the acquirer, an ISO, a PayFac or another type of provider?
2. Which legal entity will contract with us for acquiring?
3. Who makes the final underwriting decision?
4. Which acquirer or acquiring partners sit behind the service?
5. Who will settle our funds?
6. Who can place funds on hold or impose a reserve?
7. Who handles chargebacks?
8. Will we have our own Merchant ID or operate under a sponsored merchant structure?
9. Who provides the payment gateway?
10. Who stores our payment tokens and customer credentials?
11. Can the gateway work with another acquirer?
12. What happens to our payment setup if we leave?
13. Which company should we contact if the account is suspended or terminated?

The answers provide a much clearer picture of the payment service than the provider's marketing title alone.

Why does this matter when changing payment provider?

Understanding the payment structure becomes particularly important when a business wants to switch.

Suppose a merchant says:

“I want to leave my processor.”

That could mean several different things.

The business may actually want to:

• leave the ISO but retain the acquiring relationship
• change acquirer
• change gateway
• replace a PayFac
• move away from an embedded software payment service
• change the entire payment stack.

Those are very different migration projects.

Before cancelling anything, establish exactly which layer is causing the problem.

Read our Switching Merchant Account Provider guide.

How contracts can differ across the payment stack

The same principle applies to contracts.

A merchant can have separate agreements covering:

• acquiring
• ISO services
• card terminals
• gateway
• software
• other payment services.

Leaving one agreement does not necessarily terminate the others.

For more detail, read our No-Contract Card Processing guide.

Our view: ask who does what, not simply what the provider calls itself

Payments terminology can make merchant services appear more complicated than they need to be.

The simplest way to understand a provider is to ignore the marketing label initially and ask five questions:

Who sells it?

Who underwrites it?

Who processes it?

Who settles it?

Who controls the merchant relationship?

Once those answers are clear, terms such as ISO, PayFac, PSP, processor, gateway and acquirer become much easier to understand.

And for merchants with complex requirements, knowing the structure can prevent a common mistake: changing the wrong part of the payment stack when the real problem sits somewhere else.

How Merchant Advice Service helps businesses understand payment-provider structures

Merchant Advice Service helps businesses identify the payment structure they actually need before comparing individual providers.

This can include understanding:

• acquiring requirements
• payment gateways
• ISO relationships
• Payment Facilitator models
• PSPs
• multiple Merchant IDs
• multiple acquirers
• integrated and embedded payments
• payment orchestration
• stored-payment requirements
• international payments
• specialist underwriting requirements.

The aim is not simply to find a company that says it can process payments.

It is to understand which organisations need to sit within the payment chain and which party is responsible for each part of the service.

Businesses can also read our Compare UK Payment Providers guide.

About Merchant Advice Service

Merchant Advice Service is a UK business-to-business payments information, comparison and provider-matching service.

Founded in 2016, MAS helps businesses understand their payment requirements and identify payment providers or specialist partners that may be relevant to the way they operate.

We provide information and support across areas including:

• merchant accounts
• payment gateways
• integrated payments
• higher-risk merchant accounts
• international acquiring
• multiple currencies
• specialist payment integrations
• more complex provider requirements.

Merchant Advice Service is not an acquiring bank or payment processor and does not make final underwriting decisions.

The MAS information, matching and introduction service is free to businesses. MAS may receive commission or a referral fee from some commercial partners where an introduction results in a completed product or account.

For full information about how our service operates, provider matching, independence and commercial relationships, read How Merchant Advice Service Works.

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Sources and industry references

This guide was reviewed and updated in August 2026 using UK regulatory guidance, card-network information and primary payment-industry sources.

Financial Conduct Authority — Payment Services Regulations

The FCA's guidance describes regulated payment services under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, including acquiring payment transactions.

FCA: Payment Services Regulations and Electronic Money Regulations

Financial Conduct Authority — Acquiring Payment Transactions

FCA perimeter guidance explains the regulatory definition of acquiring and notes that it is likely to capture master-merchant and Payment Facilitator models. The guidance also distinguishes acquiring from purely technical services such as processing, storage, terminals and gateways.

FCA Handbook: Payment Services and Acquiring

Visa — Third Party Agent Registration

Visa's current third-party-agent information identifies ISOs and other organisations providing payment-related services within the Visa ecosystem.

Visa: Third Party Agent Registration

Visa — Merchant Screening Service

Visa's Merchant Screening Service distinguishes merchants, sponsored merchants, Payment Facilitators and Independent Sales Organisations within its acquiring-risk framework.

Visa: Merchant Screening Service

Stripe — Payment Facilitation

Stripe's current payment-facilitation information illustrates how traditional PayFac, embedded-payment and technology-led facilitation models can differ.

Stripe: Payment Facilitation

Editorial and commercial disclosure

Merchant Advice Service is an independent payments information, comparison and provider-matching service.

The payments industry uses terms such as ISO, PSP, processor, merchant services provider and payment platform in different commercial contexts. The exact legal, regulatory, acquiring and card-scheme role of a business depends on the services it actually provides and the structure under which those services are delivered.

This article is intended to explain commonly encountered payment models and should not be interpreted as legal or regulatory advice about the status of an individual payment company.

Our editorial content may reference payment providers, card networks, regulators and technology companies regardless of whether Merchant Advice Service has a commercial relationship with them.

Where organisations are named for technical or regulatory examples, inclusion does not constitute a recommendation and should not be taken to mean Merchant Advice Service can introduce businesses to that organisation.

MAS may receive commission or a referral fee from some commercial partners where a business chooses to proceed following an introduction. Commercial relationships do not determine which organisations may be referenced within our independent educational content.

Organisations have not paid for inclusion in this article unless explicitly stated.

Payment-provider structures, acquiring relationships, regulatory permissions, scheme registrations and commercial models can change. Businesses should confirm the current position with the relevant provider and, where necessary, obtain independent regulatory or legal advice.