Glossary

Glossary of cross-border payments

The terms that come up daily for anyone selling digital products, nutra or courses across borders, explained without detour.

3

3-D Secure authentication: Extra layer of cardholder verification during the purchase, which shifts liability for fraud to the issuing bank.

A

Acquirer: Licensed institution that processes the card transaction between the merchant and the card network, and passes the approved funds on to the recipient.
Affiliate: Someone who promotes another person's product and earns a commission on every approved sale, paid automatically by the platform.
API: Interface that lets two systems talk to each other without human intervention, used to create charges, look up sales, and grant access automatically.
Approval rate: Percentage of charge attempts approved by the issuing bank, relative to the total number of attempts processed.
Average order value: Average value per order, calculated by dividing revenue by the number of approved sales in the period.

B

BIN: The first digits of the card, which identify the issuing bank, the country, and the card type even before the transaction is sent.
Boleto bancário: Brazilian payment method in which the buyer receives a document with a barcode and pays it later, clearing within business days.

C

Card network: Network that connects the issuing bank and the acquirer, sets the transaction rules, and arbitrates disputes, such as Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Elo.
Cash flow: Difference between when the sale's money hits your account and when your expenses come due, defined by the withdrawal period.
Chargeback: Formal dispute of a charge, opened by the cardholder with the issuing bank, that can reverse the value of the sale.
Chargeback rate: Percentage of disputed transactions over the total processed, the indicator card networks monitor to keep or close the account.
Compliance: Set of legal, contractual, and card network rules the operation must follow to keep processing payments.
Cross-border: Transaction in which the buyer's card country differs from the country where the sale is processed, which changes the fee, risk, and approval.

D

Digital product: Digital product based on information or knowledge, such as an online course, an e-book, or a mentorship, sold over the internet.
Discount rate: Percentage deducted from the value of a receivable when it is advanced before its original payment date.
Downsell: Cheaper offer presented right after the buyer declines the main offer or the upsell.

F

Fraud prevention: Set of rules and systems that analyze a transaction before approval to identify fraud risk.
Friendly fraud: Chargeback opened by the buyer themselves over a legitimate purchase they made, with no third-party fraud involved.
FX spread: Difference between the market rate and the rate used in the conversion, which is where part of the international cost stays hidden.

G

Global checkout: Checkout page built to sell in multiple countries, with local language, currency, and payment methods.

H

High risk: Classification that acquirers and banks assign to segments with above-average chargeback history, such as Nutra, supplements, and aggressive info products.
HMAC: Cryptographic signature sent along with the webhook that proves the notification actually came from the platform and wasn't tampered with.

I

IOF: Brazilian tax on foreign exchange transactions, charged when the purchase is processed abroad, which appears on the buyer's statement.
Issuing bank: Institution that issued the buyer's card and that decides, on each transaction, whether to approve or decline the purchase.

K

KYC: Identity verification process the platform runs before allowing the account to process payments.

L

LGPD: Brazilian personal data protection law, which defines how a buyer's data can be collected, stored, and used.
Local currency: Displaying and charging the price in the buyer's own country currency, instead of leaving the conversion to their bank.
Localized checkout: Payment page that adapts to the buyer's country in language, currency, payment methods, and data format.
LTV: Total revenue a customer generates over the course of the relationship, not just on the first purchase.

M

Membership area: Logged-in environment where the buyer accesses the digital product they purchased, unlocked automatically when the payment is approved.
Merchant ID: Identifier of the seller's account with the acquirer, used to group the history of transactions, disputes, and risk.

N

Nutra: Segment of health, supplement, and wellness product sales, usually with a high average order value and country-specific regulation.

O

One-click upsell: Additional offer shown right after the first purchase, approved with a single click because it reuses the card already entered.
Order bump: Additional offer presented within the checkout itself, before the main purchase is completed, usually as a checkbox.

P

Payment gateway: Infrastructure that connects a seller's checkout to acquirers and card networks, processing the charge and returning the response.
Payment split: Automatic division of a sale's amount between two or more parties at the moment the payment is processed.
Payout: The transfer of the sales money from the account on the platform to the seller's bank account.
PCI-DSS: Card industry security standard that defines how card data must be stored, transmitted, and processed.
Pix: Brazilian instant payment system, with confirmation in seconds, available every day and with no chargeback risk.
Pre-chargeback: Alert sent before a dispute turns into a chargeback, giving the seller a chance to refund and close the case.

R

Receivables advance: Exchanging a future withdrawal date for money available today, in return for paying a discount rate.
Recurring billing: Automatic, repeated charge on a card to keep a subscription active, without requiring new action from the buyer each cycle.
Refund: Return of the amount to the buyer made by the seller themselves, without going through a dispute with the bank.
Risk team: Team that reviews accounts, transactions, and alerts to decide what proceeds, what gets reviewed, and what gets blocked.
Rolling reserve: Percentage of a sale's value held back by the payment platform for a period, as protection against a future chargeback.

S

Smart retry: Automatic new attempt to process a charge after a decline, made with different parameters or a different route, without requiring action from the buyer.
Soft descriptor: The text that appears on the card statement identifying the charge, and one of the biggest causes of avoidable disputes.
Sub-acquirer: Company that processes payments under an acquirer's contract, allowing smaller sellers to operate without their own accreditation.

T

Tokenization: Replacing card data with a code that has no value outside the system that generated it, allowing you to charge again without storing the real number.

U

UTM: URL parameters that identify where the visitor came from, allowing traffic source to be cross-referenced with approval and chargeback.

W

Webhook: Notification the platform sends to your system as soon as something happens, such as an approved sale or a refund.
Withdrawal period: Time between a sale's approval and the moment the amount becomes available for the seller to withdraw.

Buying from another country should not be harder than buying around the corner. Every step described here exists because the question already reached support, more than once.
Wellington CostaGlobal Payments Specialist

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