Credit card processing fees > Assessments > Visa > Acquirer Processing Fee
Update: April 1, 2012
Visa now charges a separate acquirer processing fee for debit and credit card transactions. The APF for credit card transactions is $0.195, and the APF for debit card transactions is $0.0155.
Visa began charging an acquirer processing fee (APF) on July 1, 2009 on all authorizations acquired in the United States. The acquirer processing fee is a flat transaction fee that is currently assessed at $0.0195.
This is not an interchange fee, and it is not passed to card-issuing banks. Instead, the acquirer processing fee is kept by Visa and generates roughly $500 million in annual revenue.
Visa added its acquirer processing fees shortly after going public, and many industry experts feel confident that the fee was imposed in response to shareholder demand for increased revenue.
Unlike MasterCard’s network access and brand usage (NABU) fee, Visa’s acquirer fee is charged on all authorized transaction regardless of whether the transaction is actually settled.
The Green Sheet, a credit card processing industry newsletter, has a good article written shortly before Visa began charging their acquirer fee.
