cards

Card clearing & settlement

The authorisation only promised. Now Demo Coffee Ltd's captured sale becomes a clearing record, interchange is applied, net positions settle between Meridian Bank and Bank Alfa, and Maya Chen's hold becomes a real debit — through Cardnet, a fictional card network standing in for Visa/Mastercard-style networks. (SYNTHETIC / TRAINING ONLY)

Contributor Shubham Mathure19 July 2026

PAYMENTS SIGNAL · REFERENCE CARD

Actors

Demo Coffee Ltd (merchant)customer
Meridian Bank (acquirer)bank
Cardnet (card network)infrastructure
Bank Alfa (issuer)bank
Maya Chen (cardholder)customer

Messages

end-of-day capture batch
clearing record

The sequence

#	Step	Route	Kind
1	Capture batch — Demo Coffee closes the day's batch	Demo Coffee → Meridian Bank	message
2	Clearing records — Meridian Bank submits clearing records to Cardnet	Meridian Bank → Cardnet	message
3	Clearing cycle — Cardnet runs the clearing cycle and applies interchange	Cardnet	clearing
4	Net positions — Cardnet calculates each bank's net position	Cardnet	clearing
5	Net settlement — Net amounts move between settlement accounts	Bank Alfa → Meridian Bank	settlement
6	DR cardholder — Bank Alfa posts the final debit and releases the hold	Bank Alfa	posting
7	CR merchant — Meridian Bank pays Demo Coffee, less the merchant discount	Meridian Bank	posting
8	Statements — The purchase lands on statements	Bank Alfa → Maya Chen	message

Exception rails

Rail	Trigger	Where the money ends up	Next action
Rejected: record fails clearing edits	One clearing record fails Cardnet's edit checks — a malformed field, or presentment after the window the network's rules allow.	Maya's money stays under the authorisation hold — her final debit waits for a successful presentment. · The rejected record misses this cycle's net settlement and settles with a later one after repair.	Meridian Bank — Meridian Bank corrects and re-presents the record inside the network's presentment window.