Written by Craig Peterson, Vice President of Business Development for TenderCard
The gift card industry continues to grow at very fast pace, more than doubling in less than 3 years. Gift cards have replaced the old paper gift certificate. Gift card companies are now creating programs that cater to the small to medium size [...]
I had planned to write this post several months ago but we have been so incredibly busy that I had to put this on the back burner. So finally, here is a summary of the key changes that occurred in October to Interchange from Visa, MasterCard:
Master Card
Change #1 – MasterCard will no longer require [...]
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% + $.10
1.24% + [...]
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 [...]
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.
Watch this video and read this post to learn what to look for and ask when you are shopping for a merchant account.
What watch out for:
Super low discount rates – the lower the advertised rate is the greater your effective rate typically will be.
Free terminals or gateways – in business nothing is free in the [...]
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 [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
For the really short answer, check out Who Gets Your Merchant Account Fees?
Here’s the plain ‘ol short answer:
Originally these fees were created to cover the cost of processing for your customer’s bank (the “issuing bank ”), and to make small profit for the bank giving you your money (the “acquiring [...]
Adam J. Levtin , a professor Georgetown Law School, recently wote a real easy to understand article about who all the fees assocated with a merchant account go to at CreditSlips . Here is an excerpt:
"Here’s the deal. You purchase $100.00 of goods at a merchant on a credit card. The merchant receives $100 minus [...]
The Biggest Chunk: The Issuing Bank (the bank that “issued” your customer’s their credit card)
This part of your fees are called “Interchange.” Depending on the type of business, size of transaction and type used these fees range between 1.03% and 2.70% plus transaction fees of $0 to $0.15.
Next: Visa or MasterCard (the associations)
These are called [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
House Democrat John Conyers of Michigan and Republican Chris Cannon of Utah have introduced the Credit Card Fair Fee Act that would regulate fees the credit-card industry charges to merchants. Here is a great article from the Wall Street Journal about this act and some other thoughts about the credit card processing industry:
Wall Street Journal [...]
I have been seeing competing merchant account providers raising their rates because Visa and MasterCard are making some adjustments to interchange rates. So what is really going on? Are the interchange rates really increasing? Here is what I know:
Visa
Effective April 2008 Visa is raising their "Signature Preferred – card [...]
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 [...]
