Interchange? Card Brand Fees? What are these and what can they mean for my business?

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!

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