PSP (payment service provider)
An umbrella term for any company in the chain between a shopper and a merchant’s bank account — acquirers, gateways, aggregators and resellers all get called one. Because it covers all of them, it tells a merchant almost nothing on its own.
Why it matters to a merchant
A useful umbrella and a useless answer. "We use a PSP" tells you nothing about who is licensed, who settles and who is on the hook when a payment goes wrong — those are three questions with three possible different answers, and the term covers all of them without distinguishing any. Treat it the way you would treat "software company" on a contract: fine as a category, not enough to sign against.
Read more: Acquirer, gateway, PSP: what the words actually mean
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