Merchant glossary

You’ll use this function to process transactions that are cash-out only. It’s available for debit accounts (that’s cheque and savings) making EFTPOS transactions – and it’s optional, so you can enable or disable it at any time by contacting the Merchant Service Centre.

A chargeback will happen when a cardholder successfully disputes a transaction that was processed by your business – and it has to be reversed on their VISA or MasterCard account.

A cardholder or card issuer can raise one of these disputes any time they’re concerned about the authenticity of a transaction.

The process

The cardholder will get in touch with their issuer if they haven’t received the goods or services they purchased – or if they didn’t authorise a transaction. The card issuer will let NAB know about the chargeback request, and we'll write to you if we need any supporting documentation (like sales vouchers or tax invoices). If this information doesn’t validate the sale or delivery, your business will need to refund the disputed amount, and pay the chargeback fee.

Your NAB EFTPOS terminal comes ready to take Contactless credit card payments, which you might know as ‘Tap and Go’, ‘PayWave’ or ‘PayPass’. Your customer’s chip card will need to have the feature too.

A few things to note:

· For a sale less than $100, customers can Tap and Go without entering a PIN or signing the receipt.

· If it’s over $100, they’ll need to enter their PIN or sign as usual.

And if the sale’s more than $250, the customer will need to insert or swipe their card instead.

EFTPOS stands for “Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale”. It’s a payment system that uses cards (like debit or credit cards) to transfer funds electronically through payment terminals at the point of sale.

If your terminal ever has trouble connecting with NAB (when there’s a ‘no signal’ or ‘no response error’ for example), the Fallback function will kick in. This means your transactions will go through offline, and be updated to the server when everything’s back up and running smoothly.

Any credit card transaction that’s more than the ‘Floor Limit’ needs to be authorised.

This function lets you manually enter card details and process payments. Customers will need to sign for these transactions, and any surcharges that have been set on the terminal will apply to the sale. (You need to get approval from NAB to use the Key Entry function.)

Any Key Entry transaction that’s done over the phone, by fax, mail or on the internet is considered a ‘card not present’ transaction, and there are some extra risks.

If a cardholder disputes a ‘card not present’ transaction, the merchant is at risk of having the transaction charged back. The risk of a ‘card not present’ transaction always sits with the merchant – not the bank or the cardholder.

A 4-digit code designated by a Credit Card company that lists a merchant’s product, service, or line of business.

MOTO is great for merchant businesses that invoice their clients, and want to accept card payments over the phone, by mail, fax, email or through a mobile device.

Some industries that could benefit from MOTO include medical or specialist practitioners, universities, schools, not for profit organisations, call centres, small retail stores with no shop front, sporting and social clubs, tradespeople and suppliers, wholesales businesses and professional services.

PayPass is just MasterCard’s version of Contactless payment. It lets shoppers make small transactions by touching their MasterCard debit or credit card on a merchant terminal.

PayWave is Visa’s Contactless payment system. It lets shoppers make small transactions by touching their Visa debit or credit card against a merchant terminal.

Pre-Authorisation is used to reserve an amount on the cardholder’s account (it’s usually held for up to 7 days, depending on the cardholder’s financial institution). The funds aren’t debited from the cardholder’s account until a Pre-Authorisation completion is processed. Hotels and fine dining restaurants often use the feature.

Remember, it’s important to keep the Pre-Authorisation merchant receipt – you’ll need the Approval Code from the receipt to do a Pre-Authorisation completion. Pre-Authorisations can only be put through on credit cards.

This is where a merchant and a cardholder complete a transaction

A ‘Refund’ transaction is used to reverse a ‘Sale’ transaction that’s already been settled by the bank. Both transactions will appear on the customer’s account statement.

This is an optional feature, so you can contact the Merchant Service Centre to enable or disable it on your terminal. There are some transaction and terminal refund limits that apply too.

This is the exchange of goods or services for money – basically, it’s just the action of selling something.

This is when the funds you’ve received from EFTPOS, debit card and credit card payments are transferred to your business transaction account.

The EFTPOS machine or electronic device that lets you accept card payments, process sales and do cash-out transactions.

This function lets customers add a tip to their payment, on top of the amount they’re already paying for the goods or services. Depending on the country, it might be customary to tip waiters in bars and restaurants, taxi drivers, hair stylists, etc.

It’s an optional feature, so you can have it enabled or disabled at any time by contacting the Merchant Service Centre.

The Void function cancels the last transaction that’s been recorded for settlement, but isn’t settled yet. It’s an optional feature, so you can have it enabled or disabled by contacting the Merchant Service Centre.