Merchant of record

The merchant of record is the business that sells to the customer in a given transaction: the party whose name the customer sees on their statement and who answers for refunds and disputes on that sale.

Why it matters. Card payments route liability to the merchant. Visa’s dispute guidelines say that when a dispute right applies, the acquirer deducts the amount from the merchant’s account, and if the merchant cannot remedy the dispute, the loss is the merchant’s. Visa also tells acquirers to submit the name the merchant most prominently displays, since names that cardholders do not recognize lead to disputes.

Set by configuration. On platforms that take payments for other businesses, which party is the merchant of record depends on how the charge is set up. In Stripe Connect, for example, setting on_behalf_of makes a connected account the business of record for a payment: the charge settles in that account’s country, uses its fee structure and shows its statement descriptor. Which party is debited for a dispute then depends on the charge type and account configuration, as Stripe’s documentation spells out case by case.

In agentic commerce. When an AI agent buys for a person, the agent’s platform could in principle take the payment and resell, which would make it the merchant of record with the liability that brings. Two current protocols are designed around the opposite arrangement:

• The Agentic Commerce Protocol’s README offers agent platforms a way to let users buy directly from businesses without becoming the merchant of record.
• In AP2 v0.2 the merchant role provides and completes the checkout and is responsible for the integrity of inventory, pricing and merchant discounts, while the shopping agent only assembles and authorizes.

In both designs the business selling the goods stays the seller, and the agent carries evidence of what the person approved.

Illustrative example. A person’s agent books a hotel room through an agent platform. If the platform’s checkout sends the payment to the hotel as the seller, the hotel is the merchant of record and handles any chargeback. If the platform charges the card itself and pays the hotel afterwards, the platform is.

Neighbouring terms. A chargeback lands on the merchant of record. An agent provider is the company that runs the buying agent.