Cliff

Period before vesting starts.

Educational content only. This page does not provide investment, legal, or regulatory advice.

Why it matters

Cliff matters because it affects financial interpretation, product decisions, and industry communication.

Cliff is commonly explained through its core definition and the practical example used in the glossary.

A common mistake is to use Cliff without understanding its operational and regulatory context.

Cliff may vary across payment rails, regulations, and market practices.

3D Secure

Security protocol for online cards.

Account Abstraction

Smart contracts as wallets.

Account Updater

A service that refreshes expired or reissued card details for recurring billing merchants.

Acquirer

Bank processing payments for merchant.

Algorithmic Trading

Trading using automated algorithms.

API

Application Programming Interface.

Stripe

Stripe: Payment tokenization 101

Used for payment tokenization, network token, and account updater context.

Stripe

Stripe: Merchant of record

Primary source for merchant-of-record terminology.

Stripe

Stripe: What is a payment facilitator?

Primary source for payfac models and platform payments.

Author

Founder and multilingual fintech glossary editor

Reviewer

Editorial and source review layer

Reviewed

3/15/2026