Facsimile Draft: A paper record that may be provided by an acquirer as a substitute for the sales draft. A substitute document.

Factoring/Laundering: The coercion/bribery of a merchant to process another merchant's transactions (often fraudulent) for payment.

Fiber Optic Cable: A transmission medium composed of small strands of glass, providing a path for light rays that act as a carrier.

File Transfer: The copying of a file from one computer to another over a computer network.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP): A method of transferring files from one computer to another over the Internet.

Financial EDI: Electronic exchange of payments, payment information or financially related documents in standard formats between business partners.

Financial Institution: Any organization in the business of moving, investing, or lending money, dealing in financial instruments, or providing financial services. Includes commercial banks, thrifts, federal and state savings banks, saving and loan associations, and credit unions.

Firewall: A specially programmed computer that connects a local network to the Internet and for security reasons only allows certain types of messages through.

Floor Limit: A dollar amount set by the acquirer in accordance with MasterCard and VISA rules and regulations. The merchant must obtain authorization for any transaction over the floor limit.

Folio: A lodging merchant's guest file that contains the cardholder's transaction information, including check-in and out dates, rate, intended length of stay at check-in time, applicable charges and taxes.

Force / Offline Transaction: The after-the-fact entry of a purchase resulting from a referral ('call Authorization Center') message or a downtime interruption of service from a Network which enables the merchant to enter (as a force/post authorization) the transaction and the approval code into the EDC batch.

Frame Relay: An emerging network access protocol designed to accommodate data applications. It is characterized by four important features: 1.High transmission speeds 2.Low network delay 3.High connectivity 4.Efficient bandwidth use

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ): A term that refers to a list of questions/answers provided by companies relating to software products, Web site, etc.

Fulfillment: The acquirer's response to an issuer's retrieval request for a sales draft. The acquirer supplies the issuer with the original draft or a clear reproduction. The fulfillment record confirms the response and initiates reimbursement to the acquirer for fulfilling the request.

Funding: Refers to the payment to a merchant for his submitted deposits.

Funding Correction: A payment made by payment processor to a merchant to rectify an error made by payment processor subsequent to clearing a merchant's bankcard deposit/transmission through the Associations and payment processor receiving payment from the Associations for said bankcard deposit/transmission.

Funds Transfer System: A wire transfer network, ACH, or other communication system or clearing house or association of banks in which payment processor's funding bank is a member and through which a payment order by a bank may be transmitted. Includes: SWIFT, CHIPS, Fedwire, the National Association of Clearing House Associations, MasterCard and VISA.