Glossary
Acquiring PSP
An acquiring PSP serves business digital euro users — managing merchant accounts and the acceptance solutions through which businesses take payments.
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Definition
Acquiring PSP
The acquiring PSP sits on the business user's side of a digital euro payment. Where the distributing PSP serves individuals, the acquiring PSP serves merchants.
The role
An acquiring PSP is responsible for:
- Access management — managing accounts for business users.
- Acceptance solutions — the channels through which a business actually takes a payment, including e-commerce and point-of-sale.
- DESP interfaces — connecting to the platform to have transactions settled.
What makes the business side structurally different
A business user is not simply an individual with a company name. The rules differ in ways that shape the whole integration:
| Individual | Business | |
|---|---|---|
| Holding limit | An amount, still to be set | Zero |
| Linked account | Optional | Mandatory |
| Number of accounts | One | Unlimited |
| Aliases | One optional | None |
The holding limit of zero is the defining constraint. A merchant never accumulates digital euro. Every incoming payment waterfalls immediately to commercial bank money on the mandatory linked account.
In other words, from the merchant's balance-sheet perspective the digital euro is a payment rail, not a place to keep money. That is by design: it means accepting digital euro does not force businesses to hold central bank money they never asked for.
Technical acquirer is a different thing
Do not confuse the acquiring PSP with a technical acquirer — an entity that enables business users to technically accept payment orders, for example by providing terminals. A technical acquirer does not hold users' digital euro and does not necessarily participate in the scheme at all.
The acquiring PSP is a scheme participant. The technical acquirer may be a supplier to it.
Sources
Related reading
Distributing PSP
A distributing PSP serves individual digital euro users — onboarding them, holding the customer relationship and connecting to the DESP on their behalf.
TSP
A TSP is a technical service provider a PSP can outsource digital euro work to. The PSP keeps full regulatory responsibility.
Alias
An alias is a pseudonymous identifier — such as a phone number — standing in for a digital euro account, so you can be paid without revealing your DEAN.
BEAN
BEAN is the Basic Euro Account Number — positions 5 to 18 of a DEAN, the indicator digit plus the 13-digit serial.