Once a customer has initiated a payment request, the transaction will pass through several systems - the merchant's own application, APEXX, the acquiring bank and finally the cardholder's bank. Each system will assign its own unique reference number to the transaction which will show on reports and statements from that system. 


In order to trace a transaction through the entire payments system, the originating (i.e. the merchant's) application will therefore need to assign a unique identifier which is supported and displayed by all systems in the chain. 


The APEXX API provides the merchant_reference field in the payment request for this purpose. The merchant reference is a mandatory field that requires a unique value for every transaction. 


Additionally, the optional dynamic_descriptor field can be used to include a short reference or description that will appear on the customer's bank statement. This field is only supported by some acquirers. 


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