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Card Knowledge Glossary

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G

Government Card

A generic term for commercial purchasing cards (purchase cards) issued to federal, state, or local government agencies. It can refer to a Purchase, Travel, or Fleet card.

Government Payments

An inexact term used to describe either payment received from citizens or businesses by the government, or payments from a government agency to a supplier.

Government Purchase Card

G+B200

GSA Advantage

GSA advantage is the name of the central federal sourcing website sponsored by the General Services Administration.

GSA SmartPay

GSA Smartpay (GSA-Smartpay) is the name of the current U.S. Government Purchase card (procurement card) program. The GSA-Smartpay cards are provided by five banks including Bank of America, USBank, CitiBank, Mellon Bank, and BankOne. A master contract was established in 1998 and runs for 10 years.

H

Http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

HTTP is a client/server protocol for delivering hypertext material across an internet. HTTP is stateless: when a client makes multiple requests to a single HTTP server, each request is treated independently. HTTP servers do not remember the earlier requests. The stateless protocol allows HTTP servers to respond to requests quickly

Https (Hypertext Transfer Protocol - Secure)

A variant of HTTP for handling secure transactions. Browsers that support the URL access method, "https", connect to HTTP servers using SSL. "https" is a unique protocol that is simply SSL underneath HTTP. Use "https://" for HTTP URLs with SSL and "http://" for HTTP URLs without SSL. The default "https" port number is 443.

Hyperlink

An active cross-reference from one resource to another. The cross-reference is called active because it is presented in a medium which allows the reader to follow it; for example, by mouse-clicking it a reader can follow hyperlinks in an HTML document using a Web browser.

I

I.M.P.A.C.

The I.M.P.A.C (or IMPAC) card was the name of the original U.S. Government Purchasing Card issued by USBank. The acronym stands for International Merchant Purchasing and Acceptance Card.

Independent Service Organization (ISO)

ISO. In the payment systems industry, a third-party organization that facilitates merchant registration to accept charge or credit cards.

Interchange

The exchange of information, transaction data and money among banks. Interchange systems are managed by Visa and MasterCard associations according to their requirements and are very standardized so banks and merchants worldwide can use them.

Interchange Fee

A fee paid by the acquiring bank/merchant bank to the issuing bank. The fee compensates the issuer for the time after settlement with the acquiring bank/merchant bank and before it recoups the settlement value from the cardholder

Interchange Rate

Interchange rates are baseline costs established by the two bankcard associations, Visa and MasterCard, on behalf of their member banks that set the foundation costs which makeup the merchant's bank card processing fees. Additional fees may be added by the merchants acquiring bank to reach a final rate called the "discount rate".

Interchange Reimbursement Fee

One of the following: A fee that an acquirer pays to an issuer in the clearing and settlement of an interchange transaction, based on either the standard (paper-based) rate or electronic rate. A fee that an issuer pays to an acquirer for making a cash disbursement to a cardholder or check purchaser.

Internet

A global public network consisting of millions of interconnected computers all linked together using the Internet Protocol.

Internet Payment Gateway

An Internet payment gateway is a centrally managed service that offer merchants the ability to process credit card transactions into the credit card networks. Typically, the credit card data uses the Internet as a method of transporting the data from the merchant's systems to the operator of the payment gateway.

I-Purchasing

I-Purchasing (iPurchasing) is a MasterCard sponsored capability that allows intra-organizational use of the corporate purchase card (procurement cards) to process Level-3 (level III) transactions without paying the interchange fees.

ISO

Independent Service Organization. In the payment systems industry, a third-party organization that facilitates merchant registration to accept charge or credit cards.

Issuer

Any association member financial institution, bank, credit union, or company that issues, or causes to be issued, plastic cards to cardholders.