In the four-corner model, the acquiring bank enables the merchant to accept card payments at the point of sale (PoS). Acquirers act as financial service providers in the credit card environment, offering acquiring services to retail companies on behalf of the credit card companies. Based on cooperation agreements with card providers (EMV), acquirers ensure the acceptance and processing of transactions on behalf of the merchant by forwarding commercial and technical data to the participating banks or financial institutions and the card providers. They establish a connection to their bank (issuer) and authorize the payment. If the acquirer and issuer are the same institution, these are so-called on-us transactions. Besides supporting the accepting activities within card-related transactions, they often also provide the necessary hardware equipment and software at the merchant’s POS. Acquirers may also act as integrators and offer other payment methods (e.g., invoice, PayPal, cryptocurrency). In the past, the scale-elastic market of acquirers has experienced a strong concentration in recent years, resulting in two dominant companies, the Danish Nets Group and the French Worldline.
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