Transactions

Descriptorsanchor

A descriptor is the identifying information that your customers will see on their statement when they make a purchase through your mobile app or website. Ultimately, a customer’s bank will determine exactly how your business’s descriptors will appear on customer statements, but they are often formatted like this:

MYCOMPANYNAME SYDNEY AU $100.00

Your account supports three types of descriptors:

  • Soft descriptors: The descriptor that shows up after a transaction has been authorized. While the charge is in a pending state, the soft descriptor will be displayed on the customer's statement.
  • Hard descriptors: The descriptor that shows up after a transaction has settled. As soon as the customer's bank has finalized the transaction status, the hard descriptor will be permanently displayed as the description of the charge on their statement.
  • Dynamic descriptors: A custom descriptor configured and passed with each transaction via the API. This can be helpful if you want to provide specific information about the transaction in your descriptor (e.g. the name of the product).

You are required to provide the following parameters for your descriptor information:

  • Merchant name (trading name)
  • Clearing city and country

We have automatically configured your hard descriptor based on information collected during the application process. Contact us to make any changes. Let us know (1) which fields you would like to change and (2) the new desired values for these fields. Keep the restrictions below in mind when sending us your new values.

note

If you would like to update your descriptor for PayPal transactions, you can do so from your PayPal console.

Hard and soft descriptor requirementsanchor

Merchant name (trading name)anchor

  • Limit of 22 alphanumeric characters
  • Can contain periods and spaces

Clearing city and stateanchor

  • City limited to 13 alphanumeric characters
  • State limited to 2 alphanumeric characters
  • No special characters are supported

Dynamic descriptor requirementsanchor

note

When issuing a refund, the descriptor will default to the dynamic descriptor that was passed on the original transaction.

Dynamic descriptors are composed of only your business name and must meet the following guidelines:

  • Limit of 22 characters
  • Can only contain letters, numbers, dashes, asterisks, and periods
    • Dynamic descriptors for Amex Direct transactions require an asterisk
  • Must match the registered trading name that was provided during the application process

You can find more information on how to pass dynamic descriptors for individual transactions in our developer docs.