Acquiring Bank Law and Legal Definition
A bank processing a merchant’s credit card sales and crediting the amount to merchant’s account is an acquiring bank. Acquiring banks buy the merchant's sales slips and credits the monetary value to the merchant account. The bank acquires transactions using credit cards issued by all banks within the card association scheme. For example, Visa MasterCard. The acquiring bank does business through a merchant account. It is not a bank account, but a line of credit. An acquiring bank has got interest in the merchant's products and business practices, as it accepts the risk of merchant becoming insolvent.
