Payment system in the context of "Electronic funds transfer"

A cheque (or check in American English) is a document that orders a bank, building society, or credit union, to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account (often called a current, cheque, chequing, checking, or share draft account) where the money is held. The drawer writes various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay the amount of money stated to the payee.

Although forms of cheques have been in use since ancient times and at least since the 9th century, they became a highly popular non-cash method for making payments during the 20th century and usage of cheques peaked. By the second half of the 20th century, as cheque processing became automated, billions of cheques were issued annually; these volumes peaked in or around the early 1990s. Since then cheque usage has fallen, being replaced by electronic payment systems, such as debit cards, credit cards, and mobile payments. In an increasing number of countries cheques have either become a marginal payment system or have been completely phased out.

An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software developed for personal computers may have a corresponding mobile app optimized for the device’s constraints. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific mobile operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, iPadOS, Windows Phone, or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.

An app store can be thought as a restricted, commercial version of a package manager, although an app store provides additional services like app discovery, user reviews, security screening, licensing enforcement, and seamless integration of a payment system. Unlike traditional package managers, which prioritize dependency management and system integration, app stores focus on usability, monetization, and a curated user experience.

The Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS) is a real-time gross settlement payment system used for sterling transactions in the United Kingdom. It is mainly used by financial institutions to make wholesale financial payments and by large companies to make corporate treasury payments. In 2024, 52.7 million CHAPS payments were made, worth a total of £87.5 trillion. This made up just 0.1% of the total number of payments in that year, but was 88% of the total value of payments.

CHAPS was originally established in London by the Bankers Clearing House in February 1984, transferring to the CHAPS and Town Clearing Company Limited in December 1985. This company also operated the 'town clearing', where cheques cleared the same day between the 'town' bank branches in central London. Town clearing had been the forerunner of the CHAPS system, and was finally closed in 1995.

Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names, including bank cards, ATM cards, client cards, key cards or cash cards.

There are a number of types of payment cards, the most common being credit cards, debit cards, charge cards, and prepaid cards. Most commonly, a payment card is electronically linked to an account or accounts belonging to the cardholder. These accounts may be deposit accounts or loan or credit accounts, and the card is a means of authenticating the cardholder. However, stored-value cards store money on the card itself and are not necessarily linked to an account at a financial institution. The largest global card payment organizations are: UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard and American Express.