Payment Methods Glossary

• The glossary

  3D Secure 3D Secure is an authentication protocol that provides an additional layer of verification for card-not-present (CNP) transactions. It’s designed to help reduce fraud. We recommend that you use 3D Secure to comply with authentication regulations for online payments such as PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication.

  Chargebacks A chargeback is when a payment is reversed after a customer disputes a charge on their account statement. For example, if the product arrives damaged.

  Chargebacks are different from refunds. For a refund, the customer asks the merchant directly to reverse the payment. But for a chargeback the customer makes this request to their issuing bank. The customer might request a chargeback if the merchant disagrees with the customer’s claim for a refund.

  Local entity required Some payment methods only allow domestic merchants. These payment methods require you to have a local entity in their market.

  Multiple partial refunds Multiple partial refunds let you refund part of the payment several times, as long as the sum doesn’t exceed the original transaction amount. This is particularly useful for businesses looking to refund items in an order at different times.

  Partial refunds As opposed to full refunds, partial refunds let you return only a proportion of the original transaction amount. If you want to perform partial refunds for the same transaction more than once, check the payment method supports “multiple partial refunds”.

  Not every payment method supports partial refunds. Use the advanced filters in the Payment Method Explorer to learn which payment methods support them.

  Processing currency This is the currency your customer pays with. Most of the time, the processing currency should match the currency your customers use. 

  Recurring Recurring payments let you provide customer interactions that don’t involve Strong Customer Authentication, like subscriptions, or a one-click checkout.

  Once the customer agrees to the terms and gives their permission, transactions can be taken from their account without a need for customer involvement. 

  Recurring payments can be fixed or variable. Fixed means the customer is charged the same amount every time, whereas the amount can change with variable. Variable recurring payments are common in the utilities industry, for electricity payments, for instance.

  Refunds To repay funds to your customer (e.g. if they return an item), you’ll need to refund the payment. 

  Most payment methods let you refund the full transaction amount. A general exception to this is additional action payment methods, where the payment is not made online, but in a store, bank, or at an ATM.

  You can also perform partial refunds, but not every payment method supports them. A partial refund is when you refund only part of the original transaction amount.

  Sales day payout With sales day payout, you get all the funds from a particular sales day in a single payout batch. The funds you receive don’t depend on the settlement timelines of the card schemes and payment methods used by your customers. This simplifies reconciliation and makes cash flows more predictable.

  Separate captures By default, payments are captured immediately after authorization. With some payment methods you have the option to separate the authorization step from the capture step. Separate captures mean you can capture a payment later. 

  It can be useful, for example, to capture a payment after the goods have been shipped. This would mean you’re still able to cancel the payment if there are any delivery issues.

  Settlement currency This is the currency the payment method uses to transfer funds to Adyen. Usually, the processing currency is the same as the settlement currency.

  Settlement delay After a transaction is made, it can take several days for the payment method to transfer the funds to Adyen, before they are paid out to the merchant. This is called a settlement delay. The delay can range from 2 days to up to 28 days and differs per payment method. Note, if you’re using sales day payout, you won’t be affected by this delay.