Merchant Account Glossary - S

Shopping Cart
When used for internet shopping, a customer can use a shopping cart as they would in a grocery store by placing items inside for eventual purchase. A shopping cart groups the chosen items so that only one online credit card transaction is needed to complete their purchases.

Standard Industry Code/Merchant Category Code (SIC/MCC Code)
These are four-digit, numeric codes that identify merchant business types. There are thousands of SIC codes and all of them are defined by VISA International in the Visa USA Merchant Data Manual.

Swipe
This is physical act of sliding a card through the credit card processing equipment.  The machine then reads the magnetic strip on the back of the credit or debit card. An alternative way to accept the credit card, or debit card would be to manually key in the information. However, swiping a card is far more beneficial because it documents the physical presence of the card at the point of sale. All swiped transactions are face-to-face which lessons the chances of credit card fraud.