10 Things Supermarkets Need to Know about Merchant Accounts

Do you or one of your clients operate a supermarket?  Is so, there are a few things you should know that could result in some significant savings on merchant account fees. Here is the list:
1. Visa has lower Interchange rates for consumer cards used at a supermarket:

TRANACTION TYPE
RETAIL
SUPERMARKET

Swiped Consumer Card

1.54% [...]

What is Straight Pass Through - Video

If you would like to lower your merchant account fees by switching to a “straight pass through” account go here, fill out the short form and we’ll have you saving money in no time.
If you would like us to analyze your current merchant account and show you how much a “straight pass through” merchant account [...]

Where do Processing Fees Come From? Pt. 2

By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
For the remainder of this discussion, I’ll discuss interchange fees and then a little about the fees to the merchant account provider.  The assessment fees paid to the associations, both being small and not negotiable, can wait for another day.
Interchange fees usually make up roughly 80% of the fees you [...]

The Three Price Points of a Merchant Account

How challenging can managing a merchant account be? I review 5 – 10 merchant account statements each week and almost everyone one starts out looking like it is written in a foreign language!  Some statements have fees from three separate months!  Other statements are extremely vague and seem to be intentionally hiding information.  So the [...]

What is up with the CVV2 Code?

Many merchants believe that adding a cardholder’s three or four digit CVV2 code for a “card not present” (CNP) transaction will help qualify the transaction for a lower discount rate. However that is not the case; the CVV2 code is only valuable to protect against credit card fraud and has nothing to do with [...]

Interchange Compliance - Guidelines

Rules. It seems like we have more rules in our lives every day doesn’t it? I am writing this post to make you aware of some more rules. These rules are for merchant accounts and if you don’t follow them you will you will be fined! Well maybe [...]

What is Straight Pass Through?

Straight pass through has to do with merchant account risk. Visa and MasterCard have set specific rules to deal with these risks. For example, a keyed in transaction is a higher risk than a swiped transaction, because many times the card holder is not physically present. For keyed transactions, processed correctly, Visa [...]

Interchange Plus Explained

Have you heard of Interchange Plus for merchant accounts? What used to be the exclusive price model for larger businesses is now being offered to companies of all sizes. So what is Interchange Plus?
First lets start by defining Interchange. Interchange is the set price from Visa and MasterCard for various [...]

Typical Merchant Account Experience

Each day Google sends me a list of blog posts written about merchant accounts.  Today I followed a link to the Fashion Incubator Blog.  Below is a portion of what the blogger, Kathleen Fasanella, wrote about working with on-line shopping carts and merchant accounts:
“I signed-up for the recommended merchant account provider and was surprised to [...]