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What is the Fair Swipe Act? The Fair Swipe Act, introduced by DC council member Charles Allen, would change the calculation of credit card processing fees. Currently those fees are calculated on the total bill or purchase. Instead, under the Fair Swipe Act, the fees would be calculated only on the subtotal. That is, on …
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Mastercard uses many different interchange categories to determine the rates and fees your business pays for accepting credit cards. There isn’t just a single “Mastercard business” interchange rate. There are 5 different business card rates, depending on the “program level.” From there, most businesses will see rates further broken into one of two categories: Data …
Mastercard Commercial Interchange – Data Rate 1 and 2 Read More »
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In this article, we’re going to focus on Visa and Mastercard interchange categories and their effect on your processing fees. In order to do that, we first need to have a common understanding of the basics. Interchange Basics Refresher In my article on interchange rates and fees, I mention several times that there are many …
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Business Product 1 applies to card-not-present transactions and Business Product 2 applies to card-present transactions.There are additional “sub-categories,” determined by spend tiers 1-5. Note that Visa uses Roman numerals, so the spend tiers are I, II, III, IV, and V. Spend tiers relate to the cardholder spending requirements and range from $0 in Tier I …
Visa Business Product 1 and Business Product 2 Interchange Read More »
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The two categories essentially replaced Visa’s prior CPS interchange program, and apply to different consumer credit transactions. The broadest difference is that Restaurant 1 applies to card-not-present transactions and Restaurant 2 applies to card-present transactions. There are additional “sub-categories” with Restaurant 1 and 2, but unlike with some other categories, there are actually only two …
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Product 1 and Product 2 are common interchange categories for a variety of business types. The categories essentially replaced Visa’s prior CPS interchange program, and apply to different consumer credit transactions. The broadest difference is that Product 1 applies to card-not-present transactions and Product 2 applies to card-present transactions. However, within those two categories are …
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Non-qualified charges indicate expensive transaction costs for you. There are two main reasons for them: your processor charged you a non-qualified rate, or your transactions “downgraded” to Visa’s non-qualified interchange category. It’s easy to confuse Visa’s non-qualified interchange with the non-qualified rates from your processor. To understand the difference, let’s take a look at both …
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As with many things in credit card processing, it’s complicated. Interchange, as set by Visa and Mastercard, is non-negotiable. It isn’t possible to get lower rates or fees than what Visa and Mastercard publish. But that’s not the full story. Two factors – one malicious, one not – play a role in whether you can …
