Cards, ATMs, and Merchant Processing

Cards, ATMs, and merchant processing terms describe cardholder access, merchant acceptance, authorization, settlement, disputes, and card-network controls. This branch covers ATM and debit cards, prepaid and store cards, merchant acquiring, authorization holds, chargebacks, PCI DSS, and void transactions.

Use these pages when a transaction runs through a card network, ATM, merchant account, acquirer, or dispute workflow rather than a direct bank transfer or cheque process.

What This Branch Covers

Decision Lens

Start with transaction status: card presented, authorized, captured, settled, voided, disputed, charged back, or refunded. Each status points to a different record and risk owner.

Evaluation Checklist

• Identify the cardholder, merchant, issuer, acquirer, network, authorization code, transaction date, settlement batch, dispute status, and fee record.
• Separate card access, ATM withdrawal, authorization, capture, clearing, settlement, chargeback, void, refund, and compliance-control evidence.
• Check receipts, processor reports, merchant statements, authorization logs, chargeback notices, cardholder statements, and network rules.
• Review whether the term changes cash availability, liability, fraud exposure, dispute rights, merchant funding, or reconciliation.
• Treat legal, regulatory, tax, privacy, and liability conclusions as professional-advice areas.

Common Mistakes

• Treating authorization as merchant settlement.
• Ignoring chargeback windows, network rules, and processor fees.
• Confusing debit-card access with stored-value or prepaid-card balances.
• Reviewing a merchant dispute without the authorization, receipt, and processor record.

In this section

Choose a subsection first. Deeper term pages live inside each subsection, which keeps large topic hubs readable.