A ‘Merchant’ is what bankers use to describe shopkeepers or store owners who sell goods or services. The Online Etymology Dictionary defines merchant as ‘one engaged in the business of buying commercial commodities and selling them again for profit.’ The products or the financial instruments that banks provide to an owner of a business to manage the movement of the currency between the buyer and seller is commonly referred to as ‘Merchant Services’. This is also know as the Payments Industry or sometimes described as ‘Credit Card Processing’. The fundamental purpose of the standard financial instrument of the Payments Card Industry is called a ‘Merchant Account.” At it’s core, the merchant account is essentially a bank account for the business that captures, authorizes & settles the card payment transactions for the business owner. Basically, a Merchant Account approves the sale amount of a card payment  and then moves the money from the customer to the business. Think of a merchant account as the inverse of a consumer bank account or credit card account. So like a bank account reports the transactions that happen on a debit card, a merchant account reports all the card payment transactions that a business accepts. Then just as you would receive a bank statement at the end of the month detailing transactions from your account, the business owner would receive a report of all the card payment transactions for the business called a merchant statement.