An acquiring bank is the bank that signs up a merchant to accept card payments, passes the merchant's card transactions into the card networks, and pays the merchant the money it is owed. It is also called a merchant bank, merchant acquirer or simply an acquirer, and the full explanation of how acquiring works, how acquirers earn money and why they carry risk is in the Acquirer entry.
In every card payment the acquiring bank sits on the merchant's side, opposite the card issuer, which gave the card to the cardholder. Only licensed members of card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard can acquire, so many processors and payment companies work under an acquiring bank's licence. The acquirer usually opens a merchant account for each business and remains answerable to the scheme for chargebacks and losses if the merchant fails.
Not every acquirer today is a traditional bank; some are licensed payment institutions. A payment facilitator signs up many small sellers under one acquiring relationship.