---
term: "Card-not-present transaction"
category: "Commerce and checkout"
url: https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/card-not-present-transaction
source: AgenticOpenFinance glossary
---

# Card-not-present transaction

> A card payment where the card is not physically presented to the merchant, such as online or in-app.

A card-not-present transaction is a card payment in which the card is not physically presented to the merchant, as in online, in-app, mail or telephone orders. Because the merchant cannot inspect the card, these payments carry more fraud risk and rely on other checks, such as EMV 3-D Secure, tokenisation and risk scoring, with liability rules set by the card schemes. Almost every agent purchase by card is card-not-present, which is why schemes are building agent-specific credentials and signals.

Related terms: [EMV 3-D Secure](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/emv-3-d-secure.md), [Payment token](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/payment-token.md), [Agent token](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/agent-token.md), [Chargeback](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/chargeback.md)