The MCC or Merchant category code is a code that classifies the merchant's activity. The MCC-code consists of four numbers and every trade activity has one. With its help payment systems, banks and other participants of money transactions understand what kind of trade the seller is engaged in. Bank-acquirer, which provides payment terminals and processes payments, assigns MCC-code to merchants automatically. To do this, it is enough to accept payment from a card of one of the payment systems: Visa, Master Card, etc. The code depends on the activity in which the seller is engaged. Not only sellers of goods but also service providers, such as car washes, have their own codes.
Banks need the MCC-code to understand how to interact with the seller. For example, a bank uses the MCC to find out if a point of sale is a member of a bonus program. If a merchant has several lines of activity, for example, selling different categories of goods, then the merchant will have only one main MCC. The basic MCC-code will be the MCC-code, which was assigned to the shop first. The codes can be viewed in the public database, which is available in every country.
