Glossary · Payments
Authorization
Authorization is the real-time approval step when a card is swiped, where the network confirms funds and the issuer approves or declines before the transaction later settles.
Authorization happens in milliseconds at checkout; settlement (the actual movement of money) happens hours or days later. Reward routing must occur during authorization because that is when the funding card is chosen.
Pikt responds to the Just-In-Time funding request inside the authorization window, which is why routing decisions have a hard real-time deadline.
Related terms
- Just-In-Time (JIT) Funding — Just-In-Time funding is a card-network flow where the issuer is asked, in real time during authorization, to fund a transaction — letting a router decide which underlying card pays before the charge clears.
- Reward Routing — Reward routing is the practice of automatically selecting, at the moment of purchase, the credit card in your wallet that earns the most value on that specific merchant and category.