PAC
PIN Authentication Code.

Package
The envelope, container or look of a company’s outgoing direct mail piece.

Package Insert
Any promotional piece included in a product shipment. It may be for different products from the same company or for products and services of other companies.

Package Test
A test, of part, or all of the elements of one mailing piece against another.

Packet
A chunk of information sent over a network. Each packet contains the address that it's going to and the address from which it came.

Paid
An account that is paid up to date or paid in full.

Paired Sample t-test
A paired sample t-test is used to determine whether there is a significant difference between the average values of the same measurement made under two different conditions. Both measurements are made on each unit in a sample, and the test is based on the paired differences between these two values. The usual null hypothesis is that the difference in the mean values is zero.

Paper
Sales slips, credit slips, cash disbursement slips, and other obligations indicating use of a card or a card account.

Paper / Voice
The oldest, yet most familiar bankcard process mode whereby a merchant must call the authorisation centre for approval of a credit card transaction and then submit their sales slips for processing.

Parcelling
A method that identifies groups of Accepts and Rejects which appear similar.

Parent Node
In a decision tree, a node that has branches below it (child nodes) other than outcome nodes. See Node and Child Node.

Participation Mortgage Bond
The interest given on a piece of land, in writing, guaranteeing the payment of the debt or the execution of an action. The bond automatically becomes invalid when the debt is paid or the action is executed.

Particulars of Claim
Pleadings, which set out the allegations of the Plaintiff against the Defendant and the relief which is sought.

Partitioning
The act of separating a database into training, test, and validation subsets. There may be more than three partitions because there may be many validation sets or many test sets.

Password Reminder Phrase
A sentence giving the user a hint as to what their (forgotten) password is.

Patent
A government grant of temporary monopoly rights on innovative processes or products.

Pay-per-lead
A form of advertising in which the advertiser pays for each sales lead generated from a site.

Pay-per-sale
The customary way to pay Web sites that participate in an affiliate program, using a percentage of the value of the transaction.

Pay-per-view
The most usual form of paying for advertisements on Web sites. Advertisers pay a small fee for each visitor who views a Web page on which their advertisement is displayed.

Payment Processor
A company that attends to the actual processing of a credit card transaction. Different to a merchant account bank which merely acts as the recipient of the transaction or proceeds.

Payment Profile
The payment history of an account.

Payment Projection Score (PPS)
A specific type of behaviour score that predicts the risk of highly delinquent accounts paying back a portion of the outstanding balance.

Payment Service Provider
An organisation which is authorised by acquirers and which will have the equipment and expertise to supply to merchants who do not want to invest in their own secure servers.

Payment System
A set of instructions and procedures used for the transfer of ownership and settlement of obligations arising from the exchange of goods and services.

PC
Abbreviation for Personal Computer, which is a desktop workstation used for hundreds of applications. These can be used to access databases resident on a mainframe.

PCL
Abbreviation for Please Call Letter.

PDA
Personal Digital Assistant, a small portable computer carried by the user, primarily used for notes, addresses and email. Also called a hand-held computer.

PDF File
A method for distributing formatted documents over the Internet requiring a special reader program.

PDV
Abbreviation for Present Discounted Value, which is a financial process for calculating the present value of an amount of money to be received or paid in the future. The formula is PDV = V / (1 + i)n where V = future value, i = market rate of interest, n = time in years.

Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient
Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient, usually denoted by r, is one example of a correlation coefficient. It is a measure of the linear association between two variables that have been measured on interval or ratio scales, such as the relationship between height in inches and weight in pounds.

Penetration Ratio
This is the number of an organisation’s customers as a percentage of the universe that defines your customer's type of household or business. "We had a penetration ratio in that postal code of 8%."

Percent Allocation
The process of routing each call to the optimum destination according to real-time conditions. See Call by Call Routing.

Performance Assessment
A method of measuring the predictive accuracy of model.

Performance Date
The date that performance data is observed.

Performance Definition
The definition of what constitutes Good, Bad and Indeterminate accounts.

Performance Exclusions
Accounts that are excluded from the performance sample.

Performance Group
A categorisation of accounts. Typically accounts are categorised into the following groups: rejects, goods, bads, indeterminates and insufficient experience.

Performance Period
The period of time for which the Performance Definition is applicable. For example, in Behaviour Scoring, the performance period is typically 6 months.

Performance Scoring
A scoring system used to estimate the probability that an existing account will go bad. It is developed using account behaviour data, such as payment and purchase activity and is typically calculated on a monthly basis. Also known as Behaviour Scoring.

Periodic Rate
The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) divided by the days, weeks, or months in a year. An APR of 18 percent has a monthly periodic rate of 1.5 percent and a daily periodic rate of 0.0493 percent.

PERL
Acronym for Practical Extraction and Reporting Language which is a programming language designed for processing text.

Permission Marketing
Prospective consumer gives their consent to receive marketing information.

Permutation
A re-engagement or shuffling of an ordered collection of objects.

Person
A natural person, corporation, government or governmental subdivision or agency, trust, estate, partnership, cooperative, or association.

Personal Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy filed by an individual; also called consumer bankruptcy.

Personal Computer
This is a desktop workstation used for hundreds of applications. These can be used to access databases resident on a mainframe. See PC and Micro-computer.

Personal Consumption Spending
The amount which households collectively spend on goods and services.

Personal Disposable Income
Personal income less personal income tax payments. Also called “take-home pay.”

Personal Identification Number (PIN)
A personal identification alpha or numeric code that identifies a cardholder in an authorisation request.

Personal Savings
The difference between personal disposable income and personal consumption spending.

Personalisation
The process of including personal references in an outgoing mail piece. For example, ‘Thank you for your order of Feb. 23 for six boxes of fudge, Mrs. Williams.’ With laser letters, personalisation does not cost more than non-personalised letters.

Pertinent Element
Any information in a judgmental system of evaluating applicants that a creditor obtains about applicants and considers that has a demonstrable relationship to a determination of creditworthiness. See Judgmental System and Empirically Derived Credit System.

Petition
The document that commences a bankruptcy proceeding.

Phishing
An online scam in which the perpetrator sends out a large number of legitimate looking emails that appear to come from respected companies (such as MSN, Amazon.com,Yahoo, etc.) with the intent of "fishing" for personal and financial information from the recipient.

Photocards
Plastic cards which have photos of the cardholder and his or her signature laser printed on the back as a fraud prevention mechanism.

PIC Solutions
A unique, specialist risk management solutions company, providing Project management, Integration services and Consulting solutions to a wide range of clients.

Pick-up Card
An issuer's response to an authorisation request stipulating that the card be confiscated by the merchant and returned to the issuer.

Piggyback
An offer that rides along with another offer. See Ride-Along.

PIN
Personal Identification Number. The confidential individual number or code used by a cardholder to authenticate card ownership for ATM or POS terminal transactions.

PIN Authorisation Request
A procedure enabling the issuer to validate cardholder identity by comparing the PIN to the account numbers.

Pivoting
The changing of the dimensional orientation of a report or page display.

Pixel
The smallest graphic element displayed on a screen which is usually a single-coloured dot.

Plaintiff
A person or business that files a formal complaint with the court.

Planned Obsolescence
A marketing strategy where companies deliberately produce items with the intention of phasing them out. See High Obsolescence.

Pledge
The use of securities or shares as collateral in a financial transaction. The pledge can either be done with electronic or physical documents.

Plug-In
A program that you download to your computer and work with your browser software to provide faster and more interesting ways to view and navigate the Internet. Plug-ins are designed for use with Netscape Navigator browsers.

Point of Sale (POS)
The location of a merchant where the customer makes a purchase.

Point Scoring
An objective methodology widely used by credit grantors to make credit decisions. Also known as Credit Scoring.

Point-of-Sale (POS) Payment System
Electronic equipment used in a point-of-sale payment system that automatically dials a designated telephone number to obtain authorisation for sales by an electronic transfer of funds for cash, cheques, or drafts in the purchase of retail goods and services. See Dial-up Terminal, Draft Capture and Electronic Data Capture Terminal.

Points
A fee charged by the lender as additional compensation for making the loan. One "point" is equal to 1% of the principal amount of the loan.

Policy Rule
A basic building block of a policy-based system. It is the binding of a set of actions to a set of conditions - where the conditions are evaluated to determine whether the actions are performed.

Population Splits
The point at which multiple scorecards are required due to the different behaviour of applicants with specific attributes. For example, applicants over and under age 20.

Population Stability Index
The calculated value of the Divergence between the original development population and the population that came through the door in a more recent interval. Also known as PSI.

Port
Generally, port refers to the hardware through which computer data is transmitted; the plugs on the back of computers are ports. On the Internet, port often refers to a particular application. For instance, one might telnet to a particular port on a particular host. The port is actually an application.

Portable Document Format
Also known as PDF.

Portfolio Bad Rate
The overall bad rate for the portfolio above, and including, a specific score. The overall portfolio bad rate is that of the lowest score.

Portfolio Credit Risk Model
A model for calculating economic capital due to credit risk.

POS
Known as Point-of-Sale. The location of a merchant where the customer makes a purchase.

Positive File
A file listing the current balance and available credit for each active cardholder account. PIN and other cardholder information may also be included.

Positive Shift
A movement in the population towards a lower risk portfolio.

Postal Pre-sort
Sorting outgoing letters designed to take advantage of postal discounts.

Posting
The process of recording debits and credits to the cardholder's credit or deposit account.

Potential Credit Exposure
Credit exposure that may arise in the future as a result of changes in underlying prices and rates that affect the value of a particular transaction. Potential exposure calculations recognise the probability distribution of underlying financial prices. Popular measures of potential exposure include maximum, peak, expected, and average exposure.

Power of Attorney
Legal document authorising one person to act on behalf of another.

PPS
Abbreviation for Payment Projection Score. A specific type of behaviour score that predicts the risk of highly delinquent accounts paying back a portion of the outstanding balance.

Practical Extraction and Reporting Language
A programming language designed for processing text. Also known as PERL.

Pre-approval
A lender’s firm commitment on a loan. A pre-approval includes a preliminary screening of a borrower`s credit history. Information submitted during pre-approval is subject to verification at application.

Pre-approval
A lender’s firm commitment on a loan. A pre-approval includes a preliminary screening of a borrower`s credit history. Information submitted during pre-approval is subject to verification at application.

Pre-qualification
Pre-qualifying gives someone an idea of their borrowing power. It is the process of determining how much money a person will be eligible to borrow.

Pre-screen Scoring
The process of using a pre-screen scorecard to streamline a mailing list before sending a mail shot. Also known as Solicitation Scoring.

Predictive Modelling
The extraction of predictive information from large databases. Also known as Data Mining.

Predictor Variable
The known items of information that are used to predict/estimate the values of unknown/independent variables. Also known as Independent Variable or Feature.

Prepaid Card
A card paid for at point of sale permitting the holder to buy goods and services up to the prepaid value.

Prepayment Penalty
A substantial charge that may be imposed for early payment of all or a large part of a loan.

Present Discounted Value
A financial process for calculating the present value of an amount of money to be received or paid in the future. Also known as PDV.

Presentation Server
The target physical machine on which the data warehouse data is organised and stored for direct querying by end users, report writers, and other applications.

Presentment
The process by which the acquirer sends the transaction to the issuer for reimbursement.

Prime Loan
A loan offered to borrowers with an above average credit history and sometimes referred to as an "A" loan. Prime loans generally are priced lower and cost the borrower less.

Prime Rate
Banks and lending institutions typically charge a range of interest rates for money lent. The prime rate is the minimum lending rate a bank charges its most valued customers. All interest rates charges are based on the prime rate, plus a percentage.

Principal
The amount of a loan, excluding interest, or the amount invested, excluding income.

Principal Member
A financial institution that directly participates as an issuing and/or acquiring member of MasterCard International.

Privacy
Privacy is the right to freedom from unauthorised intrusion.

Privacy Policy
A statement used on Web sites to explain how a company protects the privacy of the information it aggregates about its users.

Private Label
A retailer's proprietary card. Accepted only at that merchant's retail establishments.

Pro rata
Proportionately.

Probability of Default (PD)
This is the likelihood of an account missing a payment. The probability of default increases as more consecutive payments are missed i.e. the higher the current delinquency status, the higher the PD for the next month.

Probability Table
A lookup table relating the outputs of a linear or non-linear discriminant analysis to the probabilities of class membership. Also known as a Model Integration Table.

Processing Date
The earliest date stamped on the transmittal summary and draft by the member or its processor.

Processing Fee
A fee charged by lenders or brokers to prepare a complete loan application file.

Processor
An organisation that is connected to VISANet and or Banknet and provides authorisation and/or clearing and settlement services on behalf of a member. See Member Bank.

Product Life Cycle
Life cycle in which products pass through the stages of introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

Production
In a marketing sense; a function in an advertising agency to produce letters or other marketing material.

Professional Fraudster
Unlike the hacker, this fraudster is far subtler. All the application or customer details that are completed on the website appear legitimate with no initial signs that anything is out of the ordinary. Be aware of the applicant’s online shopping history or the type of email address provided. See Hacker Fraudster and Opportunistic Fraudster.

Profile
A method of describing a typical customer. A customer profile is created by modelling the database.

Promissory Note
A legal contract in which the borrower promises to pay back the loan. The "promissory note" sets forth the terms and conditions that apply to the loan repayment, such as interest rate, payment due dates, etc.

Proof of Claim
The form filed by a creditor stating their claims against a bankrupt debtor.

Proprietary Card
A card issued by a financial institution to its customers for access to their credit or deposit accounts.

Prospect
A potential customer who you have targeted.

Prospecting
Mailing or telemarketing to prospects who are not yet your customers.

Prospectus
A document providing potential investors with a complete description of the product or service for sale. This would include a description of the management team, the investment objectives, historical performance, potential business risks, tax considerations or any other relevant information.

Protected Memory Card
A smart card that requires a secret code or PIN number to be entered before the data can be sent to or received from the semiconductor chip.

Protest
The legal process of demanding the payment of a negotiable item from the person who has refused to pay.

Protocol
The agreed-on rules that computers rely on to talk among themselves. A set of signals that mean “go ahead,” “got it,” “all done”, etc.

Protocols
The language one computer or terminal uses to communicate with other computer systems.

Provision for Credit Losses
The amount deducted from income equal to the amount by which a bank adjusts its loan balances to reflect anticipated losses on them.

Proximity Card
A contactless card whose presence and data can be sensed by an interface device not in physical contact with the card.

PROXIMO
A credit term for next month.

Proxy
In business terms; the written authority to speak or act on behalf of an absent shareholder at a shareholders’ meeting.

Proxy Voting
Acting or speaking on behalf of an absent shareholder on matters concerning the management of the company at a shareholders’ meeting.

PSI
Acronym for Population Stability Index. The calculated value of the Divergence between the original development population and the population that came through the door in a more recent interval.

PSTN
Public Switched Telephone Network. Term used to describe the standard telephone network.

Psychographics
A method of grouping people by wealth, orientation, hobbies and interests.

Public Key Cryptography
This encryption method requires two unique software keys for decrypting data, a public and a private key. Data is encrypted using the published public keys and the unpublished private keys are used to decrypt the data.

PUK
PIN Unblocking Key.

Pull
A term for the percentage of prospects responding to a telephonic or mail offer.

Purchase Price
The total negotiated price, including all sales tax and extra costs payable.

Purchasing Card
A card designed to help companies maintain control of small purchases while reducing the administrative cost associated with authorising, tracking, paying and reconciling those purchases.

Purge
A process of eliminating undesirable names from a list.