Nopan Glossary
This glossary defines key terms used across Nopan’s platform, documentation, and APIs. It is intended to help teams across engineering, operations, compliance, and partner organizations understand our terminology in the context of non-card payment processing.
This glossary is designed for quick reference. You can refer to table of content or leverage search function above.
Categories:
Business & Operational Roles
Acquirer
A bank or financial institution authorized to process card transactions on behalf of a merchant. Nopan primarily operates in the non-card space but may integrate with acquiring institutions in specific markets.
Contracting Entity (Legal Entity)
A specific legal unit under the Organization that engages in transactions. Each contracting entity may have distinct bank accounts, tax jurisdiction, or compliance profile.
Shopper
The individual or entity making a purchase from the merchant and initiating a payment via Nopan’s services.
Issuer
A financial institution that issues cards or payment instruments to customers and authorizes transactions.
Processing Account
A processing business entity that accepts payments through Nopan on a specific legal entity.
Organization
The top-level business entity. Represents the legal owner of the integration. This is the entity that signs the contract with Nopan.
Payer
The end customer who initiates and authorizes a payment.
Provider
A third-party payment network, wallet, or banking interface that Nopan connects to process transactions.
Payments & Processing
Account
The internal ledger maintained by Nopan in relation to the Merchant's transactions, used for calculating financial entitlements and/or liabilities. See Accounts.
Account-to-Account (A2A) Payments
A payment made directly from one bank account to another without using cards. Nopan enables A2A payment rails across multiple regions.
APM (Alternative Payment Methods)
A set of non-card payment methods supported by Nopan, including wallets, real-time bank transfers, and local branded schemes.
Authorization
The process of verifying that a payment request is valid and the payer has sufficient funds or permission to proceed.
Balance
The amount of funds in the Merchant’s Account after deductions including fees, reserves, and adjustments.
Bank Account
The account designated by the merchant for settlement of funds collected via Nopan’s services.
Capture
The step in the payment flow where authorized funds are finalized and moved from the payer’s account.
In some cases (when autoCapture is set to false), Capture is separate from Authorization, allowing merchants to delay or batch moving of funds.
Chargeback
The reversal of a transaction initiated by the issuer or scheme due to a dispute or other scheme-permitted reasons.
Digital Wallet
An app or service that stores payment credentials and allows users to make electronic payments. Nopan supports various wallets depending on market.
Payment Instrument
Any mechanism (e.g., bank account, wallet) used by a customer to initiate a payment.
Payment Intent
A request initiated by the merchant to start the payment process. In Nopan’s system, this represents the desired transaction.
Payment Method
A specific channel through which a payment is processed, such as Bizum, BLIK, or Satispay.
Payment Scheme
In Nopan's context, a system or network governed by rules for processing transactions.
Processing
The execution of services by Nopan including authorization, collection, settlement, and reporting of transactions. See Payment lifecycle.
Reconciliation
The process of matching payment records with bank settlement data to ensure accuracy.
Refund
The return of funds to the customer initiated by the merchant to reverse a completed transaction. See Payment lifecycle.
Reserve
Funds withheld from the merchant’s settlements to mitigate financial risk.
Transaction
A financial instruction initiated by a customer and processed through Nopan for the purchase of goods or services.
Transaction Data
All details related to a transaction, such as date, amount, currency, merchant ID, and customer information.
Platform & Integration
API
Application Programming Interface. Nopan's APIs provide programmatic access to initiate payments, manage configurations, and track transactions.
API Key
A credential used to authenticate a client application making requests to Nopan’s APIs.
Callback Notification
A server-to-server notification sent by Nopan to inform clients of an event or status change, such as payment confirmation. See Webhooks
Consumer PSP
The payment service provider responsible for initiating payments on behalf of the payer.
Documentation
The implementation guides, API documentation, compliance materials, and technical references provided by Nopan.
Endpoint
A specific URL within Nopan’s API that performs a defined function, such as creating a payment or checking its status.
Environment
A deployment context like production, sandbox, or development used to isolate workflows and configurations.
Gateway
The technical connection between the merchant’s environment and Nopan’s infrastructure that enables processing of transactions.
Idempotency Key
A unique identifier included in API requests to prevent duplicate operations if the request is retried. See Idempotency keys.
Integration Phase
The period during which a partner implements and tests Nopan’s APIs prior to going live.
Mocking
A simulation technique used during integration to emulate real API responses or payment provider behavior. Nopan’s sandbox environment supports mocking to allow safe testing of various scenarios before going live. See Mocking.
Onboarding
The process of integrating, configuring, and preparing a merchant or partner to transact on Nopan’s platform. This includes onboarding steps such as Know Your Customer (KYC) verification, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, and the collection of necessary business and banking documentation to meet compliance requirements.
Pagination
A method used in API responses to return large datasets in smaller, manageable parts.
Portal
The Nopan-provided dashboard for merchants and platforms to manage payments, access reporting, and receive notifications.
Rate Limiting
A technique to control the number of API requests a client can make within a time frame to ensure system stability.
Redirect Flow
A user interaction pattern where the payer is redirected to a third-party interface (e.g., application login) to authorize a payment.
Retry Logic
A mechanism that automatically re-attempts failed operations due to transient issues (e.g., network timeouts or temporary provider outages). Nopan recommends exponential backoff with idempotency keys.
Sandbox
A test environment that mimics production behavior for safe integration and testing.
Services
The full suite of Nopan’s offerings, including payment processing, fraud prevention, reporting, onboarding, and support.
Webhook
A method for real-time event delivery, where Nopan calls an external URL when a specific event occurs (e.g., payment completed). See Webhooks.
Security & Compliance
AML (Anti-Money Laundering)
Compliance controls designed to prevent financial systems from being used to conceal illicit funds.
Applicable Data Protection Regulations
All relevant data protection laws, including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR).
Applicable Regulations
Laws, directives, supervisory requirements, and industry standards (e.g., PCI-DSS) that Nopan and its clients must adhere to.
Audit Trail
A timestamped record of all significant actions or events taken on the platform for compliance and investigation purposes. This includes logs related to API calls, access changes, and system events.
Client Certificate
A digital certificate used in mTLS for authenticating client requests at the network edge. See Authentication.
Detached JWS (JSON Web Signature)
A cryptographic signature sent separately from the payload. Used in Nopan’s APIs to ensure message integrity and authenticity.
Encryption in Transit
Data is protected using TLS during transfer between systems.
HTTP Signature
A cryptographic signature included with an API request or response to verify its integrity and authenticity. See HTTP signatures.
JWT (JSON Web Token)
A compact, URL-safe token used for securely transmitting claims. Often used in Nopan’s OAuth flows and signed requests.
KYC (Know Your Customer)
A regulatory requirement to verify the identity of business or individual customers before transacting.
mTLS (Mutual TLS)
A security protocol where both client and server authenticate each other using certificates. Nopan supports mTLS at the network edge.
OAuth 2.0
An open standard for access delegation used by Nopan to authorize client applications and issue tokens.
Request Signature
A cryptographic signature included with API requests to ensure the integrity and origin of the request. See Request Signing.
Response Signature
A cryptographic signature included with API responses to ensure the integrity and origin of the response. See Response Validation.
Scheme Rules
The regulations, mandates, and technical specifications issued by a payment scheme that govern participation and processing.
SLA (Service Level Agreement)
A formal agreement on response time and availability commitments between Nopan and its partners.
Terms
The legal agreement between Nopan and the merchant, including the merchant agreement form or onboarding questionnaire, fee schedule, and supporting documentation.
If you're unsure about a term used in Nopan's documentation or API, contact support@nopan.com or your integration manager.