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 unders...

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 lower your interchange. Downgrade...

But what does that mean, exactly? In this article, I’ll lay out the Justice Department’s claims and explain how it affects you and your business. Lawsuit Overview The Justice Department’s civil antitrust lawsuit alleges that Visa engaged in unlawful conduct regarding debit card networks. It claims that Visa holds a monopoly in debit card network ...

In fact, there are two areas where it can excel: debit routing and fraud prevention. In this article, we’ll look at the first one - how AI can help save your business money through debit card interchange optimization. Debit Routing Background In order to cover the possible benefits of AI for debit routing, it’s important to have a solid understan...

Tap on phone (or tap to phone as Visa calls it and tap to mobile for Amex and Discover) is a contactless payment method where customers tap a seller’s smartphone instead of a credit card machine to pay. You may also hear this referred to as "SoftPOS" short for software POS. In other words, a POS system that doesn't need special hardware; it just ne...

Note: CardFellow does not use ChatGPT or artificial intelligence to write blog posts. We are using ChatGPT for this article to go through the advice it may give when prompted to assist with comparing credit card processors.  Before we dive in, let’s briefly go over what ChatGPT actually does and how we approached this article on ChatGPT in credi...

At the time, experts were divided on whether businesses actually would implement credit card surcharges and whether such fees would alienate consumers. Let’s look at the current state of surcharging and the impact it has had on businesses and consumers. First, a quick refresher. What is Surcharging? Surcharging, defined as adding a fee to purc...

When credit card transactions "downgrade," it means that they failed to meet criteria for the "target" interchange category. In practical terms, it means your business paid more to process that transaction than was necessary. Non-qualified is a "downgrade" category. Note: "Standard" as an interchange category still applies in limited circumstanc...