The commercial processing of payments is monitored by supervisory authorities. This requires a license as a payment, e-money or banking institution.

On the payee side, payment processing is mainly - but not necessarily - carried out by a specialized institute or institute unit. A less extensive license as a payment institution is sufficient for specializing in payment processing. Such payment service providers are referred to as PSP (Payment Service Provider) designated.

In the card business in particular, the institution that acquires the receivables from the payer from the merchant and passes them on to the issuer via the payment systems is acquirers designated.