# Crypto Acquiring Terms: A Glossary

> Payment request, confirmation policy, tolerance, settlement and the vocabulary of accepting crypto payments.

- Source: https://thecoinreference.com/acquiring-terms-glossary/
- Published: 2026-06-20
- Author: Reference Desk
- Publication: The Coin Reference — Facts, dates and numbers, kept current
- Topic: acquiring
- Tags: glossary, acquiring, definitions

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**Payment request.** A generated address, amount and expiry issued to a customer for a specific order. Should be network-specific.

**Payment window.** The period during which a payment request is valid. Should be longer for networks with variable confirmation times.

**Confirmation policy.** The number of blockchain confirmations required before a payment is treated as settled. Should scale with amount rather than being flat.

**Zero-confirmation acceptance.** Treating a broadcast transaction as settled before inclusion in a block. Carries a replacement risk which some providers absorb below a threshold.

**Replacement signalling.** An indication in a transaction that it may be replaced by a higher-fee version. Relevant to zero-confirmation risk assessment.

**Tolerance.** The permitted shortfall below the requested amount within which a payment is accepted. Commonly one percent or a small fixed amount.

**Underpayment.** A payment below the requested amount, most often because the sender's wallet deducted the network fee from the total.

**Guaranteed settlement amount.** An arrangement where the provider commits to the fiat amount from the moment of the payment request, carrying the price risk itself.

**Conversion margin.** The difference between the market rate and the rate applied when converting received crypto to fiat. Frequently larger than the stated fee and rarely on a pricing page.

**Settlement frequency.** How often a provider pays out. Determines both working capital and credit exposure.

**Unsettled balance.** Funds held by the provider between collection and payout. What is lost if the provider fails.

**Safeguarding.** The requirement on authorised payment and electronic money institutions to protect relevant funds, typically through segregation at a credit institution.

**Callback or webhook.** A notification sent to the merchant when a payment status changes. Delivered at least once, so handlers must be idempotent.

**Idempotency.** The property that processing the same notification twice produces the same result as processing it once.

**Reconciliation endpoint.** A method of querying payments over a period to detect any whose status was not received. The component most commonly omitted from an integration.

**Refund to origin.** Returning funds to the address the payment came from. The standard policy, and the only one that does not require verification of the request.

## Where these terms appear

Tolerance, confirmation policy and payment window are configuration settings rather than abstractions, and they appear in a provider's merchant dashboard. [A crypto acquiring provider with fiat settlement](https://collectnexchange.cy/business-solutions/crypto-acquiring) exposes each of them, and the defaults are frequently not what a particular merchant wants.

Safeguarding and the identity of the entity holding funds between collection and settlement are the terms that determine what happens if the provider fails. Both are verifiable, and neither appears on a pricing page. [A licensed crypto payment processor](https://collectnexchange.cy/services/crypto-payment) will name the authorised entity on request.

Idempotency and the reconciliation endpoint are engineering terms with a commercial consequence: without them, a callback that does not arrive leaves a paid order showing as unpaid.

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This article explains how something works. It is not financial advice.
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