Acquiring bank

An acquiring bank is a bank which provides a service to its business customers which allows them to accept card payments for goods & services.

Business acquiring customers of a bank are typically called 'merchants'. Card payments are commonly referred to as 'credit card' payments but this is only one type of card that can be accepted; for example, Maestro cards could be accepted by merchants which are debit cards rather than credit cards.

Acquiring banks are charged fees by VISA and Mastercard (interchange fee) which they pass on to the merchants. In some cases, there may be intermediate providers (ISOs) between the acquiring banks and smaller merchant sellers.

In the UK, the main acquiring banks often separate themselves from their associated banking arm. For example, the Royal Bank of Scotland group's acquiring bank is called Streamline. This separation from the banking arm is not unusual, but at the same time is not universal.

There are only a few acquiring banks in the UK (this table is not complete):

acquirer	linked bank(s)
Streamline	NatWest, RBoS, Clydesdale
Wells Fargo	Wells Fargo Merchant Services
Barclaycard Merchant Services	Barclays
First Data	Lloyds TSB, Bank of Scotland
HSBC	HSBC
euroConex	Alliance & Leicester

The role of an acquiring bank differs from that of a card scheme or issuing bank. The role of an issuing bank is to issue credit cards to their customers. There are considerably more issuing banks than acquiring banks.