Payment Processor Prefixes, Decoded

A prefix on a statement line is a small but genuinely useful clue. It tells you which intermediary handled the payment, which in turn tells you where to look for a receipt and who to contact if something is wrong. A payment carrying PP* will be in your PayPal history even if the merchant name means nothing to you. A payment carrying SQ* was almost certainly taken in person, on a card reader.

Confusingly, the same merchant can appear with different prefixes depending on how you paid. Buying from the same small shop online and in person can produce two entirely different statement lines.

The reference table

Why the prefix changes where you should look

The practical value here is knowing which account holds your receipt.

PayPal prefixes

If you see PP* or PAYPAL*, stop looking at your bank app. Log into PayPal and open your activity feed. Every payment is listed with the real merchant name, the item, and usually a link to the order. The truncated name on your bank statement is a dead end by comparison.

One wrinkle worth knowing: PayPal sometimes bills your card and sometimes your PayPal balance or a linked bank account. If a payment does not appear on your card statement at all, check the PayPal balance ledger rather than assuming it did not happen.

In-person readers: SQ*, IZ*, SUMUP*

These three almost always mean you physically tapped or inserted a card somewhere. If you cannot place the merchant name, the location field on the transaction is unusually helpful here — unlike online payments, it generally reflects where the business actually is.

Small businesses frequently trade under a name different from their registered one. The coffee shop called Bean There may bill as the owner's limited company. This is the most common cause of a genuinely unrecognisable small charge that turns out to be entirely legitimate.

Stripe prefixes

Stripe powers an enormous share of online subscriptions. If you see SP* against a name you do not recognise, a forgotten subscription is the most likely explanation. Stripe-billed merchants set their own descriptor, so the name you see was chosen by the merchant and may be an abbreviation, a product name, or a parent company.

When the prefix is the only thing you recognise

Sometimes the merchant portion is genuinely meaningless — a string of letters, an abbreviation, or a company you have never heard of. A structured approach beats guessing:

1. Note the prefix and check the matching account first. PayPal payments are in PayPal. GoCardless payments appear in whatever service set up the Direct Debit.
2. Search your email for the exact amount, formatted as it appears. Searching for "9.99" finds receipts that a merchant-name search misses entirely.
3. Check the date against your calendar. In-person prefixes plus a date you were travelling usually resolves it immediately.
4. Look for a repeating pattern. If the same charge appears monthly, it is a subscription, and the first occurrence is the one whose signup email you should hunt for.
5. Only then contact your bank. They can see the full merchant record, including the registered trading name, which is often far more legible than the truncated version you see.

A note on what prefixes do not tell you

A prefix identifies the processor, not the legitimacy of the charge. There is no such thing as a fraudulent prefix or a safe one. Fraudsters use mainstream processors like everyone else, and a SP* or PP* charge you did not authorise is exactly as serious as any other unauthorised payment.

Equally, an unfamiliar prefix is not a warning sign in itself. The list above is not exhaustive — there are hundreds of acquirers and gateways operating in the UK, and smaller ones appear rarely enough that most people will never see them twice.