Payment Channel
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A way a merchant accepts payment: card-present, where the card is read at a point of interaction, or card-not-present, which is e-commerce and mail or telephone order. The channels a merchant uses decide which Self-Assessment Questionnaire it may use, and a merchant with several channels may need more than one.
Applies to. Every merchant. The SAQ instructions define each questionnaire by channel, and each SAQ states which channels it does not apply to.
Example. A retailer with shops and a website has two channels. Its card-present channel may fit SAQ B-IP and its e-commerce channel SAQ A, and the acquirer may ask for both, or for one questionnaire covering everything.
Limits. SAQ A covers card-not-present only; B, B-IP, C, C-VT and P2PE exclude e-commerce; SPoC excludes unattended card-present, MOTO and e-commerce. A channel the merchant forgot to mention, such as staff keying phone orders into a web terminal, is a channel with its own eligibility criteria. The instructions recommend confirming with the acquirer how multiple channels should be validated.