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What are Tripleseat Payments Statement Descriptors?

Sarah Bilecki
Updated

**The information below only pertains to online payments taken by Tripleseat Payments. If you are using Stripe, Square, or Fiserv, please contact those processors directly.

Statement descriptors explain charges or payments on customers' statements. Using clear and accurate statement descriptors can reduce chargebacks and disputes. Banks and card networks require the inclusion of certain types of information that help customers understand their statements, and statement descriptors provide this information.

 

Most banks display this information consistently, but some might display it incorrectly or not at all.

 

Setting a merchant statement descriptor

In the process of completing a merchant application, a merchant is requested to provide a statement descriptor. The statement descriptor provided will appear on all customers' statements. 

 

Statement descriptor requirements

A complete statement descriptor must meet the following requirements:

  • Contains only Latin characters.
  • Contains between 1 and 20 characters*, inclusive.
    • Card payments have a 20-character limit. 
    • ACH Debit payments have a 12-character limit. 
  • Doesn’t contain any of the following special characters: <, >, \,  ',  ", *.
  • Reflects your Doing Business As (DBA) name.
  • Contains more than a single common term or common website URL. A website URL only is acceptable if it provides a clear and accurate description of a transaction on a customer’s statement.

Locating the merchant’s statement descriptor

  • You can view the current Statement Descriptor in the console on the Merchant's Processing Details page in the General section. 
  • You can also view if a dynamic statement descriptor was used on payment by selecting an individual payment and viewing the Payment Details section.

Changing the merchant statement descriptor

  • A merchant's statement descriptor can be changed by submitting a request for the desired changes to your support team. Keep in mind the statement descriptor requirements when submitting the changes. 

Statement descriptor on a cardholder’s statement

  • Card descriptors will always contain a Pay* (USD) or NBX* (CAD) prefix whereas ACH Debit will not contain any prefix.
    • Merchant statement descriptor example:
      1. Statement Descriptor = Pineapple
        • Customer's statement:
          • card = Pay*Pineapple
          • ACH Debit = Pineapple
      2. Statement Descriptor = Paymentsbypineapples
        • Customer's statement:
          • card = Pay*Paymentsbypineapples
          • ACH Debit = Paymentsbypi