Intuit is best known as the maker of the popular QuickBooks accounting software, and as the provider of the GoPayment mobile processing application. If the company's credit card processing keeps going as it is, Intuit will also become known for exorbitant credit card processing charges and excessive downgrades. In this article, we'll briefly rev...

NOTE: As of April 2023, PayPal Here is no longer available by that name; it will be converted to PayPal Zettle. We're leaving this article for historical accuracy. With the Here mobile option PayPal takes direct aim at Square — the market leader in the smartphone credit card processing space. Square has a few things to worry about, too, not the...

Enhanced Merit 3 is a Mastercard interchange category. Interchange fees are essentially the wholesale cost of credit card processing and generate income for banks that issue credit and debit cards. The word "Enhanced" refers to the type of credit card, and "Merit 3" refers to how the card is accepted and processed. The Enhanced MasterCard card cat...

Effective April 13, 2012, Visa began charging a Transaction Integrity Fee (TIF) of $0.10 on transactions involving Visa debit and prepaid cards that do not meet CPS requirements (more on this later). The Transaction Integrity Fee will not apply to Visa credit card transactions. Transaction Integrity Fee The TIF will not affect a large number of...

Visa charges the Fixed Acquirer Network Fee, often abbreviated as FANF, for credit card acceptance. The fee went into effect in 2012, but has undergone several changes since then. Unlike some other assessment fees, the FANF is not a set cost. It varies based on factors including processing method, sales volume, and number of business locations. ...

Merit 3 is Mastercard’s way of referring to a card-present transaction for most restaurants and retailers. It can actually apply to several different interchange categories based on card type and other details. It does not apply to card-not-present transactions, which will typically qualify for Merit I interchange rates. This article explains sp...

At CardFellow, we received this message from a curious business owner. 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 a three-c...

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. Understanding the components of credit card processing cost is the fi...