Payments
Card network
Updated
A card network, such as Visa or Mastercard, runs the system and rules that carry card payments between the merchant's acquirer and the cardholder's issuer.
The card network is the road between the two banks. It routes authorisations, clears and settles the money, and writes the rules everyone on the road must follow: decline codes, retry limits, dispute reason codes and deadlines, monitoring programmes, and data standards such as merchant category codes.
Stripe describes two shapes. A network can sit in front of separate issuing banks, as Visa and Mastercard do, or it can be a standalone entity, as American Express is.
Network rules explain much of what a merchant sees. A chargeback reason code like Visa 10.4, a 3D Secure requirement in a given market, or a fee for retrying a dead card all come from the network, even though the bill arrives through the payment provider.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the main card networks?
- Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover are the largest internationally; others operate in specific countries.
- Do card networks set interchange fees?
- Yes. Networks publish the interchange rates that the acquirer pays the issuer on each payment, within limits set by law in some regions.