Fintech glossary

Service through which an entity (the acquirer) enables a merchant to accept card and other payments, processes authorizations and settles the collected funds to the merchant, net of the agreed fees.

See: AloPay Acquiring, Punto Digital

Set of policies, controls and systems to prevent, detect and report money laundering. In Venezuela it is referred to as prevention of capital legitimization; in Mexico, as PLD.

See: AloCompliance

Interface that lets two systems communicate in a standardized way. In banking, APIs expose operations such as checking balances, creating accounts or initiating payments so channels, partners and fintechs can use them in a controlled way.

See: Developers

Venezuela's monetary authority. It regulates payment systems, such as interbank mobile payments, and the foreign exchange regime, including the activity of exchange operators and currency exchange houses.

See: Venezuela

Not-for-profit association that publishes a reference model of banking service domains. Using a BIAN-inspired model makes core components easier to swap and lets integrations share a common vocabulary.

See: AloCore Banking

Confirming a person's identity from physical traits, such as the face, compared against their ID document. It usually includes liveness checks to prevent spoofing with photos or videos.

See: AloCompliance, AntiFraude AI

Mexican authority that supervises and regulates banks, SOFIPOs, SOCAPs, financial technology institutions and other entities, including compliance with their anti-money laundering obligations.

See: Mexico

Scheme developed by Banco de México to request and make payments with a phone using QR codes or messages, settled through SPEI.

See: Mexico

A financial institution's central system: it manages customers, accounts, deposits, loans, interest and the accounting for all operations. It is the source of truth for balances.

See: AloCore Banking, Guide: in-house core vs. SaaS

Relationship in which one bank provides services to another, usually in a different jurisdiction, so it can send and receive international payments or payments in a currency it does not handle directly.

See: International Payments and Remittances

Model that estimates the likelihood that an applicant will repay a loan based on their information. It can combine credit history with alternative data authorized by the customer.

See: Smart Factoring, PIE · Product Engine

App that lets a user store a balance or payment methods and use them to pay, transfer or collect from a phone. It can work with tokenized cards, QR codes or person-to-person transfers.

See: White-label Wallet

Banco de México scheme for sending transfers using the recipient's mobile phone number linked to their account, settled through SPEI.

See: Mexico

Financing in which a company assigns its invoices or receivables to a financier, who advances their amount at a discount and then collects from the debtor. In Mexico it is called factoraje.

See: Smart Factoring

Company that provides or enables financial services using technology. Depending on the country and activity, it may need authorization from the supervisor or operate in partnership with an authorized entity.

See: Guide: ITFB authorization

Accounting record where every operation is posted by account. An immutable ledger does not allow entries to be modified: corrections are made with new entries, which preserves traceability.

See: AloCore Banking

Specialized physical device that generates, stores and uses cryptographic keys without exposing them. In payments it protects PINs, encryption keys and signatures.

See: AloConnect Middleware

In Mexico, a financial technology institution authorized to connect people seeking financing with investors, under the Law to Regulate Financial Technology Institutions.

See: Mexico

In Mexico, a financial technology institution authorized to issue, manage and transfer electronic payment funds, the legal basis for many digital wallets.

See: White-label Wallet, Mexico

International financial messaging standard based on a common, rich data model. Payment systems and the SWIFT network are adopting it for payments and reporting.

See: AloConnect Middleware, AloCore Banking, Guide: migrating to ISO 20022

Messaging standard for card transactions (authorizations, reversals, settlements). It is still common in payment networks and legacy cores.

See: AloConnect Middleware, AloPay Acquiring

In Venezuela, a company authorized by SUDEBAN, under Resolution No. 001.21, to provide financial technology services in the banking sector.

See: Guide: ITFB authorization, Venezuela

Due diligence on companies: verifying their legal existence, activity, representatives and ultimate beneficial owners before opening an account or onboarding them as a merchant.

See: AloCompliance

Identifying and verifying a person, understanding their expected activity and keeping their data up to date throughout the relationship.

See: AloCompliance

Acronym used in Venezuela for money laundering, terrorist financing and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. SUDEBAN Resolution No. 010.25 governs how the banking sector manages these risks.

See: AloCompliance, AntiFraude AI, Venezuela

Small-amount financial services (credit, savings, insurance) for individuals and micro-businesses with limited access to traditional banking, often through cooperatives and community institutions.

See: Community Banking

Software layer that connects different systems and translates between their protocols. In banking it lets a legacy core talk to modern channels and partners without replacing it.

See: AloConnect Middleware, Guide: wrap and migrate

Architecture in which a single software installation serves several entities with separate data and configuration. It allows several institutions or brands to run on the same platform.

See: AloCore Banking

Model in which institutions share financial data and services with authorized third parties through standardized APIs and with customer consent. It extends Open Banking to more products.

See: AloCore Banking, AloConnect Middleware

In Venezuela, an immediate interbank transfer service from a phone, identifying the recipient by mobile number, ID number and bank.

See: White-label Wallet, AloPay Acquiring, Venezuela

PCI Security Standards Council security standard for any entity that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data.

See: AloPay Acquiring, Security and compliance

PCI Security Standards Council standard for accepting card payments on commercial phones and tablets, including on-screen PIN entry.

See: Punto Digital

Person who holds or has held a prominent public function, as well as their relatives and close associates. Prevention rules require enhanced due diligence for them.

See: AloCompliance

Process of comparing your own records with those of a counterparty (bank, payment network, processor) to confirm that balances and transactions match and to detect differences. Automating it reduces errors and manual work.

See: AloCore Banking, AloPay Acquiring

Transfer of money, usually from people working abroad to their families in their home country. It involves collection, currency exchange, compliance checks and payout at destination.

See: International Payments and Remittances

Model in which the vendor runs the software in the cloud and the customer uses it as a service, with recurring payments, without installing or maintaining the infrastructure.

See: Guide: in-house core vs. SaaS

Isolated environment for testing integrations and flows with fictitious data, with no impact on real operations. The term is also used for regulatory testing spaces offered by some supervisors.

See: Developers

In Mexico, a cooperative that takes savings from and lends to its members, governed by the specific law for these entities and supervised by the CNBV according to its level of operations.

See: Community Banking, Mexico

In Mexico, a popular savings and credit entity authorized and supervised by the CNBV under the Popular Savings and Credit Law, serving individuals and small businesses.

See: Mexico

Technology that turns an NFC-enabled phone or tablet into a point of sale for accepting contactless payments, with no dedicated physical terminal.

See: Punto Digital

System operated by Banco de México for real-time interbank transfers, available around the clock. It underpins CoDi and DiMo.

See: Mexico

Body that regulates and supervises banks and other banking-sector institutions in Venezuela, including authorized financial technology institutions.

See: Venezuela

Report the obliged entity sends to the financial intelligence unit when it detects an operation that could be related to money laundering or terrorist financing.

See: AloCompliance

Replacing sensitive data, such as a card number, with a code (token) that has no value outside its context. It reduces risk if the token leaks and enables payments with mobile wallets.

See: AloPay Acquiring, White-label Wallet

Continuous analysis of customer operations with rules and models to detect unusual patterns that may indicate fraud or money laundering, generating alerts for review.

See: AloCompliance, AntiFraude AI

Automatic notification one system sends to another when an event occurs, for example when a payment changes status, so the receiver does not need to poll.

See: Developers

Product built by a vendor that the institution offers under its own brand, colors and channels, without the end customer seeing the vendor.

See: White-label Wallet, Punto Digital