Contents tagged with Merchant Rates

  • Most Merchants Unlikely to Surcharge Credit Card Sales

    January 30, 2013
    Effective January 27, 2013 merchants in the U.S. region and U.S. territories have the option of adding a surcharge to Visa and MasterCard credit cards. Yet despite the media hype over these recent changes allowing merchants to charge up to a 4% surcharge on credit card transactions, the reality is few merchants are expected to implement additional fees at the point of sale.

    Most merchants will likely take a wait and see approach before contemplating adding surcharges, letting their closest competitors try it first.

    Another issue is that new application software to support surcharges has not yet been widely developed. One of the many stipulations if a merchant chooses to implement surcharge fees is that they must use a payment application which supports the following mandated POS … more

  • Visa, MasterCard Settlement Order Appeal Rejected

    December 11, 2012
    Upon preliminary approval of the largest antitrust settlement ever at $7.25 Billion, the end is nearing for the Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation battle now in its seventh year. But some large retailers oppose the deal claiming they are being forced to forfeit their rights to sue over the card companies’ practices in the future. Filing their concerns in a federal appeals court to challenge the preliminary approval, a decision allowing plaintiffs to begin signing up more than 7 million eligible merchants, the court decided to defer the matter until after final judgment in the case had been issued, a decision expect late in 2013. more

  • Will the Visa/MasterCard Interchange Fee Agreement Hold?

    July 31, 2012
    If the proposed settlement in the Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation case is approved, merchants will receive billions of dollars, a temporary Interchange rate reduction and the ability to surcharge card payment transactions. In return, the agreement releases Visa and MasterCard from future legal claims regarding Interchange, network rules, merchant fees and related issues by merchants.

    Both the National Grocers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores say they will oppose the agreement on the basis that the agreement does not address how Interchange is set or the complexity of Interchange fee schedules. Target and Wal-Mart are not plaintiffs in this case, but have criticized the proposed settlement for similar reasons and … more

  • Don’t Let Your Bank Hide Fees

    March 28, 2012
    PayView Like his previous article discussing the merchant services industry, Michael Conticelli has done it again with a must read insightful report in the Ft. Myers Small Business Examiner titled “New trend in merchant statements hides rates and fees”.

    Michael specifically calls out SunTrust for purposely redesigning their merchant statements to eliminate all rate and fee detail, leaving merchants no clue as to how charges are calculated. SunTrust made the decision to keep merchants in the dark about their “surcharge fees, bill backs, annual fees, PCI fees, etc.” because when merchants “don’t actually see the rates and fees month after month” they can’t ask questions.

    Michael warns “Merchants need to be vigilant in monitoring their merchant … more

  • Searching for the Best Merchant Rates?

    January 05, 2012
    Best Merchant Rates It’s what all merchants are looking for; who doesn't want the “best merchant rates”? The real question for merchants is how to go about achieving this while avoiding the pitfalls of selecting a poor service provider.

    To be the best, can you just claim it or buy the best domain name? The Best Merchant Rates may be an SEO search term, but a company name? Isn't that like naming your company “the best cola” instead of Coke or Pepsi? Do you trust a financial services company with a generic company name like “Merchant Services” or do you go with brand names like Bank of America or Costco?

    For small businesses looking for the best merchant rates, turning to mega-banks and mega-retailers is not their best choice. For example, Bank of America Merchant … more

  • Follow Best Practices for Best Merchant Rates

    December 29, 2011
    As we head into the start of a new year, now is a good time to review your card processing procedures. Many of the highest Interchange rates result from transactions that downgrade for preventable reasons. Please take a moment to review your card acceptance procedures and follow best practices as they are important in qualifying your transactions at the very lowest Interchange rates available.

    Here are the most common issues:

    If you are accepting key entered transactions, the most common cause of downgrades is due to missing AVS (address verification service) which looks to match the cardholder’s zip code at the time of authorization. Best practice: always enter the zip code. Check with your staff and your system to make sure you are entering and passing the zip code with each … more

  • Vantage Study Reveals Results of Fed Regulated Debit in October

    December 02, 2011
    Prior to new Fed rules, as required under the Durbin Amendment of last year's financial-overhaul law, debit Interchange was priced based on numerous factors such as: signature or PIN; card present or not; transaction less than $15 or higher; supermarket or lodging and more. The new Fed regulated debit Interchange in effect since October 1st forced the addition of a new rate to be determined by the size of the cardholder’s bank issuing the debit card. For small banks, with less than $10 billion in assets, the existing debit Interchange rates remained unchanged. However, for the largest banks issuing debit cards, with assets are over $10 billion, the new Fed regulated debit Interchange rate did have an impact on merchant processing costs in October.

    Mega-merchants were expected to … more

  • Best Practices for B2B Ecommerce Include Level 3 Card Processing

    November 22, 2011
    The B2B buying experience is being transformed by ecommerce technology to resemble that of a consumer online shopping experience. B2B sellers have traditionally used their web presence as a brochure site and to generate leads, taking advantage of buyers who have increasingly turned to the internet for all of their product research. However, as vendors have bulked up ecommerce platforms to handle the more complex B2B product, contract management and pricing rules, B2B ecommerce is pushing the final purchase online as well.

    B2B ecommerce is being adopted as a new sales channel, augmenting traditional direct and channel sales strategies, delivering on the “do more with less” mantra of today’s business environment. And a new-generation of buyers, with expectations crafted … more

  • Durbin’s Debit a Trick or Treat for Small Merchants

    October 27, 2011
    Merchant statements soon to reveal who gets savings from lower debit Interchange.

    Next week, most merchants will get their first chance to see if they saved money on their card processing fees due to the Fed’s mandated lower debit rates that took effect October 1st. Typically merchants receive monthly statements at the beginning of each new month showing both processing activity and how fees were applied. Some merchants don’t open their statements and many merchants don’t understand how to read them when they do, but clearly if there was ever a statement to pay attention to, it would be the October statement that’s about to be delivered.

    Merchant service providers are not required to directly pass the reduced rates of the Fed regulated debit transactions (and the … more

  • Visa’s Network Participation Fee scheduled for April 2012

    October 27, 2011
    On the Visa Q4 2011 Earnings Call yesterday, Visa stated "We're also moving forward with our modified debit economics, including the implementation of our network participation fee and the reduction of variable acquiring fees on debt, Visa debit and Interlink. As stated last quarter, we believe this offers merchants greater incentive to route transactions over our network and an opportunity to lower their per-unit transaction costs. As for details, we anticipate providing the specific pricing information to merchants and acquirers in January, which will go into effect on April 1." more