Frequently asked questions

Global Payments Germany offers innovative and highly reliable protection mechanisms that detect fraud attempts already during data entry and largely eliminate payment default risks. It is thanks to the use of such systems, which are tailored to the specific business model, that default rates are continually falling.

The card verification number is an additional number printed on the signature strip on the back of the card. On Mastercard cards it is called Card Verification Code (CVC-2), Visa calls it Card Verification Value (CVV-2). It is intended to make it more difficult to use stolen card data and to make mail-order payment transactions more secure.

The card verification number is a three or four digit number printed on the card in addition to the card number (see CVC-2/CVV-2).

This standard ensures that security in the storage, processing and/or forwarding of card data is continuously improved. All companies that work with confidential data must comply with these requirements and prove it through appropriate certifications.

A chargeback is a reversal of a payment amount. This means that a payment already made is reversed by the cardholder or the bank. If a chargeback occurs by a cardholder, Global Payments Germany as acquirer and as interface between the card organizations and the merchant is first informed about the incident and charged with the chargeback amount. The preliminary stage is a retrieval request.

The CIS offers crucial advantages in the defence against payment defaults in card-based payment transactions. Chargeback transactions are processed automatically. Any necessary interventions by the merchant can be made directly online. This saves money, because conventional chargeback appeals usually fail due to non-compliance with the response times specified by the card organizations.

The retrieval request is a request from a cardholder or the card-issuing bank for more detailed information regarding the debit made. The voucher request does not mean that the debit has been cancelled. However, if a retrieval request is not answered correctly, the process results in a chargeback.

Merchants / clients / contracting companies use Global Payments Germany's offer to process payment for goods or services offered by them. You are a contractual partner of Global Payments Germany and receive a VU number to identify the card acceptance contract.

For Global Payments Germany, cardholders / customers are people in whose name a card is issued. They purchase goods or services from the merchants or service providers and are a contractual partner of the merchants or service providers and not a customer of Global Payments Germany.

An acquirer is a payment institution licensed by card organizations that is the first point of contact for other businesses (merchants) when they want to accept card payments. It provides services in connection with payment processing and acts as a link between the parties, in particular the merchant or service provider and other entities such as card organizations and other institutions involved in the processing of payments. Global Payments Germany is one such acquirer.

These include organizations such as Visa or Mastercard, which operate payment systems and issue licences to card-issuing companies and acquirers.

This is the bank or company that issues a payment card.

BIS is the central Global Payments Germany customer portal with comprehensive reporting on all aspects of Global Payments Germany's payment processing. This is where all the information about payment transactions comes together. Numerous reports, flexible filter options and all accounting documents are available for you in BIS. It can be accessed, independent of the platform, via an internet browser at the address https://bis.globalpayments.de. You can conveniently access the BIS from anywhere using your own login data.

The AIS sends you automatic e-mail notifications on all operational issues.

Please fill in the form to specify or change the merchant account and send it by fax or e-mail to the specified address.

To do this, please fill out the form for "Change of Master Data of Merchant" and send it by e-mail or fax to the specified address.

• The debit card is a payment card where every transaction made is immediately debited from the cardholder's account. It therefore does not grant credit, but only offers the possibility of cashless payment. There are international debit cards, e.g. Maestro and V PAY, and national debit cards such as girocard in Germany. Debit cards are commonly known as EC cards. However, this term is outdated in the financial sector.
• Credit cards (and often debit cards) are issued according to the regulations of the card organizations. The term credit card is usually used for the so-called charge card, where the transactions of a month are collected and only debited then (in contrast to the real credit cards, where only an agreed partial amount is debited at the end of the month).

An overview of the debit and credit card acceptances offered by Global Payments Germany is available here.

There are many different payment options beyond debit and credit cards. Providers worldwide are constantly developing new ways of paying to make tomorrow's world more efficient and easier. Solutions are being worked on to break down the "pay walls" between customers and products/services.These include contactless technologies, payments by invoice or prepayment, instalment payments, eWallets, PaymentApps and much more.

Convenience, security and speed of the payment process play an important role for all companies that offer their payment service for m- and e-commerce via Global Payments Germany.

You can find an overview of other payment methods here.

Contactless payment is one of the fastest payment methods on the market. To pay, the customer only has to hold their card up to the terminal. According to a speed measurement by GfK in the food retail sector, it takes only 11 seconds on average to make a contactless payment. Conventional payment methods take 23 seconds in comparison. The checkout times are therefore more than halved. Queues thus become less frequent and shorter, to the delight of customers and staff. The payment process is also more hygienic because the cards no longer have to be handed over. By 2019, it is expected that around 75 million cards in Germany will have contactless capability. For retailers, this offers the possibility of an enormous increase in efficiency.

You can find out more about contactless payment here.