Once a customer has initiated a payment request, the transaction will pass through several systems - the merchant's own application, APEXX, the acquiring bank and finally the cardholder's bank. Each system will assign its own unique reference number to the transaction which will show on reports and statements from that system.
In order to trace a transaction through the entire payments system, the originating (i.e. the merchant's) application will therefore need to assign a unique identifier which is supported and displayed by all systems in the chain.
The APEXX API provides the merchant_reference field in the payment request for this purpose. The merchant reference is a mandatory field that requires a unique value for every transaction.
Additionally, the optional dynamic_descriptor field can be used to include a short reference or description that will appear on the customer's bank statement. This field is only supported by some acquirers.
What is the difference between the Merchant Reference and the Dynamic Descriptor?
The APEXX API provides two different reference fields for payment and credit transactions, merchant_reference and dynamic_descriptor.
The merchant reference uniquely identifies a transaction and can be used to trace transactions from the merchant's application to the acquirer. If the merchant reference is not unique, the transaction may be rejected as a duplicate by the processing platform. The merchant reference is not visible to the cardholder.
- Data in the dynamic descriptor fields is passed to the issuing bank and will appear on the cardholder's statement. The dynamic descriptor could be an order reference or a short description of the goods or services supplied. Note that the dynamic descriptor is not supported by all acquirers.
Related Articles
What is the difference between the Dynamic Descriptor and Merchant Reference fields?