Since it's launch in 2014, Apple Pay has been gaining traction as a payment method for consumers. More businesses are switching to contactless terminals, meaning there will be even more locations that can accept Apple Pay in the future. What is Apple Pay? Apple Pay is a digital wallet that allows consumers to pay for purchases without using...

For most businesses, the compliance date was October 1st, 2015. (Pay at the pump gas stations had until 2020 to comply due to the cost and complexity of the upgrades.) What is EMV? EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, after the three companies that initially worked together on the technology. Today, American Express, Discover, JCB,...

OptBlue provides potential benefits to businesses in the form of transparency and reduced costs over current American Express's old One Point pricing, but it also opens the door for uninformed businesses to overpay. If you're looking for an American Express merchant account, here's what you'll need to look for - and what to avoid. What is...

In this article, I'll explain the benefits and limitations of interchange plus to help you avoid overpriced merchant accounts, and why "interchange plus" isn't enough on its own. Interchange Plus is a Pricing Model, Not a Guarantee Many of the articles here at CardFellow refer to interchange plus as a "pricing model." Some pricing models ar...

The best you can hope for is a slight reduction in cost over a short period of time. As soon as you turn your back, it's a return to business as usual for your offending processor as fees creep back up. By the time you notice you're being overcharged (again), you've already lost hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars. It's a never-ending game that'...

Once you start shopping rates, you begin playing a shell game that is fixed in the processor's favor. You can't win, and you will end up paying hefty processing costs even if you choose the processor that offers the "lowest rate." As I'll explain in this article, it's not a processor's rates that are most important. It's the pricing model and ma...

Despite repeated requests to correct its content, the SBA has chosen to mislead small businesses. On September 10, 2013 the SBA posted an article titled The Best Credit Card Processing For Small Business Owners, written by guest blogger and affiliate marketer Marco Carbajo. In the article, Carbajo makes numerous false statements in an att...

Before you get gouged by a so-called "five star" processor, be sure you know the motivation of the reviewer, what or whom the review is targeting, and how credit card processing fees actually work. What's the motivation for the reviewer? The relationship of the reviewer to the company being reviewed is vital in determining whether the infor...

Unlike Target and Home Depot, small businesses don't always have the money to cover the expenses of a data breach, and may take a bigger reputation hit if customers perceive your business as not secure. You might be considering breach insurance, assuming that will protect you in the event of a data breach. Many credit card processing companies e...

Define Best: What's Really Important The problem with the word "best" is that it's subjective. Its meaning is unique to the person using it, and when it comes to credit card processing, many people don't really know what is truly best. For example, people generally feel the best credit card processing solution is the one that offers the lowest ...