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Glossary of Industry Terms

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                                           PCI Related Terms Technical Terms

Packet assembler/disassembler

(PCI) (Technical)
Communication device that formats outgoing data and strips data out of incoming packets. In cryptography, the one-time PAD is an encryption algorithm with text combined with a random key or "pad" that is as long as the plaintext and used only once. Additionally, if key is truly random, never reused, and, kept secret, the one-time pad is unbreakable
 

PAD

(PCI) (Technical) See Packet assembler/disassembler.

PAN Truncation

See Account Number Truncation.

A procedure by which a Cardholder account number is shortened to show only the last 4 digits as a security measure. The process of not printing the full primary account number and expiration date on a receipt. Typically, only the last four digits of the primary account number are printed.
 

Paper Draft

Sales slips, credit slips, cash disbursement slips, drafts, vouchers, and other obligations indicating use of a card or a card account.
 

Participant

A person who shares in a given activity. This could be a Merchant, consumer ISO, etc., depending on the context.
 

Password

(PCI) (Technical)
A sequence of characters which allows users access to a system. Although they are supposed to be unique, experience has shown that most people’s choices are highly insecure. People tend to choose short words such as names, which are easy to guess.
 

PAT

(PCI) (Technical) See Port address translation.

Patch

(PCI) (Technical)
Quick-repair job for piece of programming. During software product beta test or try-out period and after product formal release, problems are found. A patch is provided quickly to users
 

Payment Card Industry

(PCI)
This is a general term that describes the debit, credit, pre-paid, e-purse, ATM, and POS cards and associated businesses.
 

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards

(PCI)
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, a standard from the PCI Security Standards Council, developed to ensure financial data security standards. The term is sometimes more specifically used to refer to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, an independent council originally formed by American Express, Discover Financial Services, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International on Sept. 7, 2006, with the goal of managing the ongoing evolution of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
 

Payment Cardholder Environment

(PCI)
That part of the network that possesses cardholder data or sensitive authentication data
 

Payment Gateway

A combination of software and hardware that provides a secure interface to the processing network.
A Payment Gateway is service provided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizes all payments for electronic merchants, internet retailers, those companies that use both physical retail spaces and online sales, or traditional brick and mortar retail centers.
 

Payment Gateway Service Provider

A company that provides code and/or software for an e-commerce site to enable it to transfer information from its shopping cart to the acquiring bank, and on through the rest of the credit card transaction. See also payment gateway.
 

Payment Network Reference ID

The unique transaction ID number used to identify a transaction.
 

Payment Portal

Where the customer goes to pay their bill.
 

Payment Processor

A Payment Processor is a company that routes credit card transactions from merchant locations to credit card issuers for complete authorization and eventual settlement. It is distinguished from the merchant account bank, which merely acts as the recipient of the transaction, proceeds.
 

Pc Pos Application

A program application, which unites two functions from the list: cash register, the calculation of values, bookkeeping program, program for authorization and method of credit card payments.
 

PC Personal computer

Hardware device comprised of a central processing unit, display device, and input  used by person to assist in work or play.

PCI Compliant

(PCI)
The major credit card issuers created PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance standards to protect personal information and ensure security when transactions are processed using a payment card. All members of the payment card industry (financial institutions, credit card companies and merchants) must comply with these standards if they want to accept credit cards. Failure to meet compliance standards can result in fines from credit card companies and banks and even the loss of the ability to process credit cards. Compliancy is mandatory for any business that stores personal information including credit/debit card numbers. Global Secure Epay LLC doesn’t store any personal information.
 

Penetration

(PCI) (Technical)
Successful act of bypassing security mechanisms and gaining access to computer system
 

Penetration Test

(PCI) (Technical)
Security-oriented probing of computer system or network to seek out vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit. Beyond probing for vulnerabilities, this testing may involve actual penetration attempts. The objective of a
penetration test is to detect identify vulnerabilities and suggest security improvements
 

Per Transaction Fees

Fees paid by the merchant to the merchant bank or other contracted party on a per transaction basis.
 

Peripheral

(Technical)
An external device that attaches to and is controlled by a PC.

Personal Computer Software

A software program that is designed to perform a specific function on a computer system. Examples would be accounting systems, manufacturing systems, order entry and fulfillment, ticketing, reservations, etc. The application is either purchased or built by the merchant, and must be interfaced with a credit card authorization system in order to provide on-line transaction processing.
 

Personal Identification Number

A Personal Identification Number – or PIN – is a numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system.
A seceret alphanumeric or numeric code used to verify the identity of an individual attempting to use a credit card, debit card, or other account. The number that must be keyed by cardholder during ATM or debit transactions to prove their identity.
 

PIN Debit Card

A debit Card used at a merchant location by means of a Cardholder-entered PIN in the merchant PIN Pad. PIN Debit Cards bear the marks of ATM networks (such as NYCE, Star).
 

PIN Pads

Pinpads are small metallic or plastic boxes with 10-numeric and up to 16 overall keys. Connected to a processing terminal, they are used by cardholders to enter PIN numbers and debit card transactions.
 

PIN verification value

Encoded in magnetic stripe of payment card
 

PKI

(PCI) (Technical) See Public Key Infrastructure.

Plaintext

(Technical)
Data before the application of a cryptographic algorithm.
 

Plastic (Card)

This is a generic term used to identify any of the various cards issued to cardholders.
 

Plug-and-play

(Technical)
The process of adding a peripheral to a PC where no manual configuration is required.
 

Point Of Purchase

Location where payment for goods or services takes place where both the merchant and customer are present.
 

Point Of Sale

Specifically refers to the location where a transaction occurs.
 
Also refers to the physical machine that allows a merchant to swipe a credit card through to initiate a transaction, most common in retail environments.
 

Point of Sale Terminal

A Point Of Sale Terminal – or POS – is the hardware and software used for sales transaction checkouts at a retail location or online store.
 

Policy

(PCI) (Technical)
Organization-wide rules governing acceptable use of computing resources, security practices, and guiding development of operational procedures. An informal, generally natural language description of desired system behavior. Policies may be defined for particular requirements, such as confidentiality, integrity, availability, safety, etc.
 
Policies that enforce certain actions/conditions can also be implemented in software and/or hardware.

Port address translation

(PCI) (Technical)
Feature of a network address translation (NAT) device that translates transmission control protocol (TCP) or user datagram protocol (UDP) connections made to a host and port on an outside network to a host and port on an inside network
 

Portal

Is an entryway to the web. A SECURE PORTAL, such as that provided by Epayspot.com, allows users to send information online without being open to the ordinary, insecure online access. While users are in a secure portal with epayspot.com, they aren’t in the open information stream, and the information they exchange can’t be seen by others.
 

POS System

A system that processes commercial transactions such as an credit card terminal, electronic cash register, or specialized software.
 

Post Authorization

Is performed after a "Pre-Authorization" when you\'re ready to actually withdraw the funds from the customer and have the funds go to your bank account you perform a deposit.  This is a second half a sale for merchants that wish to split transactions, the first half is the pre-authorization, where the merchant authorizes the card and the second half is the Post-Authorization where the merchant actually sets the funds to move from the customer\'s account to the merchant\'s bank account.
 

Posting

The process of updating individual cardholder account balances to reflect merchandise sales, instant cash, cash advances, adjustments, payments, and any other charges or credits.
 

Pre-Notification

Notification to the RDFI that the originator intends to initiate an entry to the receivers account according to the receivers authorization.
 

Pre-paid card

A smart card on which electronic money is stored.
 

Presentment

A clearing record that an acquirer presents to an issuer through interchange, either initially (a first presentment) or after a chargeback (a re-presentment). The merchant sending the bill electronically is presenting the bill to the customer, so this has become known as presentment, or bill presentment.
 

Primary Account Number

is the payment card number (credit or debit) that identifies the issuer and the particular cardholder account. Also called Account Number. A unique number assigned by a financial institution to a customer. On a credit card, this number is embossed and encoded on the plastic card.
 

The account number given to a cardholder\'s credit or debit card account. The PAN is typically both printed and embossed on the cardholder\'s credit or debit card
 

Prior Authorization

An authorization usually done before a transaction takes place. The approved authorization request may be held for an extended length of time before a card is present or not.
 

Prior Authorized Sale

A transaction whose authorization took place earlier, often used for reservations.
 

Private information

(PCI)
A combination of credit card (Account) number with customer\'s name and some other private data.
 

Private Key

(Technical)
A cryptographic key known only to the user, employed in public key cryptography in decrypting or signing information
 

Private Label Cards

Credit, debit or stored-value cards that can be used only within a specific merchant\'s store. Also referred to as proprietary cards.
 

Procedure

(PCI)
Descriptive narrative for a policy. Procedure is the “how to” for a policy and describes how the policy is to be implemented.
 
In software, can denote a method, subroutine or function.

Processing bank

The bank that processes the transaction once a credit card number is entered.
 

Processing Date

The date on which the transaction is processed by the acquiring bank.
 

Processing Network (Vendor)

(Technical)
The medium of data transport between the merchant application and the processor. This company authorizes and captures credit card transactions. Some examples of processing networks are FDR, MAPP and Envoy.
 

Processing Solution

A device, software or virtual product that allows you to connect to a Merchant Account. With out a processing solution, like a credit card terminal, there would be no way to verify, approve and deposit credit card transactions.
 

Processor

A Processor is the company that actually routes an Authorization Request from a Point of Sale device to Visa or MasterCard, and then arranges for Fund Settlement to the merchant. Such processors are traditionally accessed via direct dial out modems connecting to their system or connect via the internet. Frame relay or wireless technology is also common.
 
    • Processors need to have a Sponsoring Bank in order to gain access to the Visa and MasterCard networks. When a Processor or other entity has made such an arrangement with a Sponsoring Bank to resell their services, they are called an Agent of that bank.
    • Any entity that sells Visa or MasterCard must disclose themselves as an Agent of their Sponsoring Bank. Such sales entities may be a Processor, or an ISO/Agent of the Processor or Processor/Bank alliance.
    • Many banks are also their own processors, while other banks will use a Third Party Processor to handle this processing for them (in their own brand name in some cases).
    • The entity identified on the merchant application (other than Bank) which provides certain services under this Agreement.
 

Program Guide

The booklet which contains Operating Procedures, General Terms, Third Party Agreements and Confirmation Page, which together with the Merchant Processing Application and the Schedules thereto and documents incorporated therein, constitute your Agreement with Processor and Bank.
 

Programming Fee

For retail merchants, a Programming Fee is a fee charged for programming the merchant’s sales terminal or credit card reader.
 

Protocol

(PCI) (Technical)
Agreed-upon method of communication used within networks. Specification that describes rules and procedures that computer products should follow to perform activities on a network
 

Public Key

(Technical)
The open key, the non-secret part of the pair of two keys in asymmetric cryptography.
 
A cryptographic key which is used for data encryption and which cannot be used for decryption. Public keys can be freely published.
 

Public Key Certificate

(Technical)
The certificate of the open key. Information about the open key, as a rule, which includes the key itself, signed by a digital signature of physical face or organization. Certificate protects the integrity of the key, if person or organization, that signed him, is well known, and their open keys are widespread.
 

Public Key Cryptography

(Technical)
A form of asymmetric encryption where all parties possess a pair of keys, one private and one public, for use in encryption and digital signing of data.
 
It is a method of coding, developed for the purpose of overcoming the main disadvantage in symmetrical cryptography - the need for having reliable channel for the transfer of key to addressee.
 

Public Key Infrastructure

(PCI) (Technical)
Public Key Infrastructure ­ the total system used in verifying, enrolling and certifying users of a security application.
 

Public Network

(PCI) (Technical)
Network established and operated by a telecommunications provider or recognized private company, for specific purpose of providing data transmission services for the public. Data must be encrypted during transmission over public networks as hackers easily and commonly intercept, modify, and/or divert data while in transit. Examples of public networks in scope of PCI DSS include the Internet, GPRS, and GSM.
 

Purchase Cards

Credit cards for use specifically by employees of government agencies, schools or individual corporations. Purchasing cards are designed to help companies maintain control of purchases while reducing the administrative cost associated with authorizing, tracking, paying, and reconciling those purchases.
 

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Although we suspected certain overcharge situations, we have to admit we were shocked at the sheer volume of mistakes that had been occurring on our processors end.
Palm Beach Community College

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Palm Beach Community College
Office of the Controller
4200 Congress Avenue
Lake Worth, FL  33461-4796
 
To Whom It May Concern:
 
We are writing to share the experience that we at Palm Beach Community College have had with PE Systems Corp.  We contracted with PE Systems to confirm that the fees we were paying in order to accept credit cards were at levels they should be.
 
As a very large and busy community college, time is a precious commodity and we were glad to find a valuable service that would handle this kind of complex task for us.
 
We initially provided PES with the last twelve months of our credit card processing statements and they stated that they would come back to us in 2 – 4 weeks with their results.
 
We have been extremely satisfied with the savings they found for us.  Although we suspected certain overcharge situations, we have to admit we were shocked at the sheer volume of mistakes that had been occurring on our processors end.  These were all situations that were not easily visible by looking at the information with which we were provided.  It took someone who knew what they were looking for and who also had the time and the resources to drill down into the intricate details that affected the fees we were paying to help correct our billing situations.
 
Not only did PE systems find and correct the situations that were causing us to lose money, they also took the time to educate us so that in the future we knew exactly what to look for if there were any questions or concerns.  We also greatly appreciate the work that they do every month for our organization, such as dealing with ongoing issues and monitoring the work that they have already done, to insure that everything remains acceptable.  With their help we still find errors and potential overcharge situations that get corrected.
 
We are very satisfied with the service that we have received with PE Systems and recommend the expertise they provide to anyone who would like to save money on the fees that they pay to accept credit cards.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
 
Palm Beach Community College






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