ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR MERCHANT ACQUIRERS AND PAYMENT INTERMEDIARIES

Instructions for Merchant Acquirers and Payment Intermediaries:

Download the Merchant Acquirer version of the document if: During the period 2007-2023 your entity had an agreement with Discover to facilitate Discover Credit Card Transactions and were characterized by Discover’s rules and regulations as an “Acquirer.”

Merchant Acquirer Instructions

Download a copy of the Payment Intermediary instructions if: During the period 2007-2023 your entity (or portion of your business) processed a Discover Credit Card Transaction on behalf of a Downstream Entity, which are contractual entities involved in accepting or processing a Discover Credit Card Transaction that you facilitated.

Payment Intermediary Instructions

If you believe you are not a Payment Intermediary, you may submit a Payment Intermediary Challenge to the Settlement Administrator.

A Payment Intermediary Challenge must include the following information and must be received electronically or postmarked by the May 18, 2026, claims filing deadline. Your communication must include:

  • The legal name of your organization as indicated on the Claim Form you received in addition to any divisions or subsidiaries that are wholly owned or operated by you and any of your predecessors, including any firms that were merged, that accepted, acquired, or processed Discover Credit Card Transactions between 2007-2023.
  • An explanation of why you believe your organization is not a Payment Intermediary.
It is advisable to include the Claimant ID and/or your Taxpayer Identification Number(s) (TINs) in the letter as well; failing to do so may result in your Payment Intermediary Challenge not being applied to all of your related business entities if you have multiple TINs. You may include any documentation or information that supports your position.

You may submit this information using one of the following methods:

  • Mail your request to: Discover Card Merchant Settlement Payment Intermediary Status, PO Box 2497, Portland, OR 97208-2497
  • Send an email to DirectServices@DiscoverMerchantSettlement.com with the subject line "Payment Intermediary Status"
  • As a response to a Payment Intermediary Information Request Defect Notice via your My Claims page (accessible by logging into the website, following the claim number link from your list of submitted claims, and navigating to the Notices section where you may respond to the defect notice once it has been transmitted. Please note, until the defect notice is transmitted, you will not be able to respond through My Claims).
Once submitted, you may generally expect to receive response from the Settlement Administrator within approximately 45 days. The Settlement Administrator may follow up with you in case of questions about your submission or letter.



Additional Documents for download:

File Layout Guidelines

File Layout Headers

NOTE: The “File Layout Headers.csv” layout is provided in .csv for illustrative purposes only. Response submissions files should be formatted as tab or pipe delimited ASCII files, not .csv.

Data Questionnaire

Data Validation Tool:

Before submitting your Merchant Acquirer or Payment Intermediary data, you may wish to validate your data file using the downloadable Data Validation Tool:

Data Validation Tool

Questions?

Please contact the dedicated Direct Services team for assistance by phone at 1-877-535-8067 , 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET, Monday-Friday (except holidays), or by email at DirectServices@DiscoverMerchantSettlement.com (3-5 business days response time).