Category Archives: Credit Card Processing Q & A

I have a question about a specific company — [removed to protect the guilty]. They are saying the rate they can provide is 1.54% on qualified and mid-qualified cards (“flat wholesale rate”). The only other rate is “up to 4.61%” on non-qualified cards. Then they charge 3 cents per transaction and no basis points. Is this true and possible? Continue reading →

Some credit card processing fees are negotiable, and some aren’t. So, please put the spreadsheet aside for a moment and read this article before you call another processor to ask the fateful question, “What’s your rate?” Before you can negotiate credit card processing fees, you have to know which fees are flexible. Credit card processing is like any other industry in that there are fixed costs and markups. Fixed costs are those that a processor can’t change, and markups are open to discussion. Continue reading →

Some credit card machines can be reprogrammed to work with virtually any credit card processor, while other machines will only work with a specific processor. Older credit card machines that don’t have the proper hardware and memory to support modern programs may not work with any processors at all. Continue reading →

Interchange plus rates vary widely from one processor to the next. How competitive rates are will depend on your business’s processing profile and how you are gathering quotes. It’s also important to understand that interchange plus is a form of pricing; it’s not a single rate. The percentage portion of the processing markup (the “rate”) may not be, and often isn’t the most important fee in determining cost-effective credit card processing services. Continue reading →