Billing Descriptors

About Billing Descriptors

A billing descriptor is the term used for the line of text that appears on your consumer's credit card or bank statement. It's a way for your consumer to identify the specific merchant associated to a particular transaction.

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Using clear and accurate billing descriptors can reduce chargebacks and disputes. Banks and card schemes require certain types of information in the form of descriptors that help customers identify statement charges.

At Reach, we often act as the "merchant of record (MOR)". This means that we take flash title of the goods that are being sold to your end consumer. The advantage of this MOR model is that merchants can access local acquiring and payment methods when they don't have a local entity in these markets. This leads to higher approval rates, lower fees, and eliminates foreign transaction fees for the cardholder. Read more about our MOR model here.

Being a MOR means that we must be referenced in the descriptor. This is why you and your customers might see "GIP" or "RCH" before your merchant name in the descriptor field.

Descriptors can contain multiple elements, but at Reach, we always endeavor to use the dynamic descriptor functionality. Dynamic descriptors allow our shortened name (i.e. RCH or GIP) followed by your merchant name. This field is variable, but often maxes out at 22 characters. We include our customer support number on the descriptor.

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It's important to remember that the final say of what is displayed on a customer's statement is ultimately up to the issuing bank. While most of your consumers might see "RCH_MERCHANTNAME", there is always a small percentage of outliers with an unexpected display configuration.

Billing Descriptor Requirements

A complete billing descriptor must have the following requirements:

• Contains only Latin characters
• Contains between 5 and 22 characters (inclusive)
• Contains at least one letter (if using a prefix and suffix, both require at least one letter)
• Does not contain any of the following special characters: <, >, /, ', ", *.
• Reflects your business name clearly
• 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)

Authorization Descriptors

Your customers may notice that the descriptor on their credit card appears once their card is authorized (but before the transaction has been captured or settled). This "authorization descriptor" is also known as a "pending descriptor." Some issuing banks will display a different line of text from the final descriptor.

Keep in mind that pending transactions are not available to be disputed or charged back.

Avoiding Chargebacks

Understanding your customers and providing proactive information to them is key to avoiding chargebacks. Many Requests for Information (RFIs) or chargebacks come about as a result of the end consumer not remembering a particular transaction. Having a clear descriptor is key to avoiding this pitfall.

Remember again, as mentioned above, that what is displayed to the consumer is ultimately up to the issuing bank. At times, a consumer may see "Reach" on their statement (or our previous name, "GoInterpay").

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It is important to ensure that if a customer contacts your company, your customer service team understands the relationship between Reach and your company.

"Fraud" or "No Authorization" chargebacks exist for every card scheme, and can occur more frequently due to poor descriptor selection.

Alternative Payment Methods

These are the most common ways transaction descriptors are displayed for end consumers who use non-credit card payment methods.

Support

If you’d like to update your billing descriptor, find out what your current descriptor is, or inquire about any aspect of descriptors, contact us at [email protected].