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% [...]

Video: Merchant Accounts - What to Look For and Ask About, Part 2

If you haven’t watched part one of of this two part series go here to watch the first video.
The theme of part two of this series is that there is much more than just price to pay attention to when shopping for a merchant account. Watch the video and take a look at my [...]

Insiders Thoughts on Interchange Plus

I just ran across an article written by an executive at Global Payments about Interchange Plus. It was written for people who are inside the merchant account industry. In the article he concludes that Interchange Plus pricing is not the best thing for merchant account providers, for several reasons including a reduction in [...]

Video: It’s Time to go Interchange Plus! (October Rates Changes)

Watch this video to learn about changes to Interchange coming in October and why, if you have a merchant account with tiers (qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified), it is time to switch your account to an Interchange Plus price model.

Check back here in the next few days for more specifics on the coming changes to Interchange.

Video - It Could Happen to You! - Save 22%!

Watch this video and save significant money on your merchant account.

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 [...]

How Do Merchant Accounts Work?

Credit card processing seems simple enough.  However, there are lots of moving parts behind the scenes. Here is a simplified, step by step list that reveals the whole process:
Authorization
1. Your customer presents their credit card (or the card number, expiration date and security code) to you or your employee.
2. You swipe the card or key [...]

Robb Makes it into US News and World Report!

I received a call from a reporter at US News an World Report two weeks ago. His name was Matt Bandyk, a business writer for the magazine. He had found me through my other blog straightpassthroug.biz and he had some questions about how businesses could lower their merchant account processing fees. We talked [...]

Let’s Get Rid of Your EIRF!

If you are seeing a Visa transaction category named “EIRF” on your merchant account statement you are probably paying much more in discount fees than you need to. If you do not know what EIRF is, read this post and then come back: What is EIRF?
So how do we get rid of EIRF? [...]

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 [...]

An SPT Processing Statement is a Sales Tool? What?

by John Robinson
We know you’re successful business people. (I mean, you’re reading StraightPassThrough.biz, right?) And this means you probably have a pretty good idea who your customers are.
But what if you could use your processing statement to really market to specific customer groups? What if your statement was a powerful sales [...]

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 [...]

Merchant Accounts for the Rich and Famous

Have you ever wondered what kind of merchant account the rich and famous businesses of the Fortune 500 have? Just in case you have the answer is Interchange Plus .

What is Interchange Plus?
First lets start by defining Interchange . Interchange is the set discount rates from Visa and MasterCard for various [...]

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 [...]