ACH Standard Entry Class code

POS SEC code: Point-of-Sale Entry

Debit card purchase at an electronic terminal.

What POS is for

A purchase paid by debit card at an electronic terminal, settled through ACH.

Consumer accounts.

Authorization

The consumer initiates the purchase at the terminal.

A summary in general terms: the Nacha Operating Rules set the exact requirements, and Regulation E adds its own for consumer accounts.

Debits, credits and addenda

Debits and credits.

Addenda on a forward entry: type 02, exactly 1 per entry. Returns (addenda type 99) and Notifications of Change (type 98) follow their own layouts whatever the SEC code.

Returns

The general return timeframes apply: 2 banking days after settlement for most codes, with the account-type rules of the entry’s Receiver.

NOC codes and return codes have their own pages.

Common mix-ups

POS is a card purchase at a terminal; POP is a paper check converted at the point of purchase.

Where POS sits in a NACHA file

The SEC code is a batch-level field: positions 51–53 of the Company/Batch Header record (type 5), so every entry in the batch shares it, and a file that mixes SEC codes puts them in separate batches. The batch header also carries the Company Name, Company Identification and Company Entry Description that Receivers see on their statements.

To read a POS batch record by record, open the file in NACHA Navigator, a free sister site that parses NACHA files in your browser without uploading them.

Look up POS from code or an AI agent

REST · GET · no key

curl -s 'https://payopskit.com/api/v1/codes/POS?set=ach-sec'

MCP · tools/call · lookup_payment_code

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "lookup_payment_code",
    "arguments": {
      "code": "POS",
      "set": "ach-sec"
    }
  }
}

Response (JSON)

{
  "code": "POS",
  "set": "ach-sec",
  "found": true,
  "matches": [
    {
      "set": "ach-sec",
      "code": "POS",
      "name": "Point-of-Sale Entry",
      "description": "Debit card purchase at an electronic terminal.",
      "details": {
        "direction": "both",
        "addendaTypes": "02",
        "minAddenda": 1,
        "maxAddenda": 1
      }
    }
  ]
}

The MCP server is at /mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key); the API and MCP docs show how to connect Claude, Cursor or VS Code.

Source: Nacha Operating Rules, Appendix Three (Standard Entry Class codes). The code’s name is the Rules’ own; the rest is this site’s plain-language summary, informational and not a substitute for the Rules or your ODFI agreement.