Interchange? Card Brand Fees? What are these and what can they mean for my business?
- Lopati Ho Chee
- Sep 1, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 11, 2022
If you have been processing payments via merchant services, you may have some questions as to what each associated fees are. Below we have listed the set of fees that are most commonly asked about and we have provided some additional insight into them. We are here to help demystify this otherwise confusing/dull information in hopes to help with understanding these fees further.
In this section
Interchange Fees
Card Brand Fees
Interchange Fees
"Interchange Fees" are the fees a merchant pays for debit and credit card transactions. These fees are determined by the card issuing companies based on the risk level or handling charges of each transaction. As an example of how this is calculated can be seen as such:
Visa Debit swiped will have a different (in most cases lower) rate than Visa Credit swiped
MC Debit swiped will have a different (in most cases lower) rate than MC Credit swiped
Additionally, Visa Debit swiped will have a different rate than MC Debit swiped.
Another factor to take into consideration is "Swiped vs. Keyed. Since "Keyed" transactions have a higher risk value, they have higher associated fees than "Swiped".
Card Brand Fees
Unlike interchange fees which are charged by the card issuing companies (Banks, Credit Unions, etc.), the Card Brand Fees are charged by the card associations i.e. Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, etc.
Here are some examples of Card Brand Fees you may see for Visa and Mastercard on your processing statements.
VISA
Fee Type | Statement Description | Description |
Visa Assessment | VS-ASSMNT CREDIT VS-ASSMNT DEBIT | Fee applied by Visa to your gross monthly volume for Visa Credit and Visa Debit. |
Visa Acquirer Processing Fee | VS-NAPF-Credit VS-NAPF-Debit | Fee for each transaction involving all US based credit cards and non PIN debit cards |
Visa Fixed Acquirer Network Fee | VS-VS FANF CP | Fixed rate based on your monthly volume |
Visa Misuse of Authorization | VS-Misuse of Auth | Applied to all Visa approved or partially approved transactions that can not be linked to a specific settled sale within a certain time frame. |
Visa System File Transmission Fee | VS-VS TRANSMFEE | System file transmission fee for every transaction settled |
Mastercard
Fee Type | Statement Description | Description |
MC Assessment Fees | MC-ACQ Brand Volume | Fee based on your gross monthly volume and applied to your total volume |
MC Acquirer Program Support Fee | MC-ACQ Prgm Support | Applied to international transactions settled by a US merchant |
MC Cross Border Fee (Domestic) | MC-CRBDR - Domestic | Applied to all Non US credit or debit cards transactions settled in USD |
MC Location Fee | MC-MC Location Fee | Fixed fee for excepting a MC debit or credit card |
MC Network Access Brand Usage | MC-NABU Auth
| Applied to all MC authorization requests per transaction |
Conclusion
Processing transactions and the associated fees that are attached to those services can be daunting. We hope that with this information, we can equip you/your business with the knowledge and tools to better understand your processing fees.
Now, continuing being successful at your craft and please, always feel free to reach out to us at info@southpacificunion.com for feedback or questions, we are here for you!
Have any questions regarding Chargebacks? check out this article for more information
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