Visa, MasterCard Add New Fees

Posted: February 27, 2012 | Updated:

The Official Merchant Services Blog has just learned that Visa and MasterCard are planning to add new processing fees in the coming months — fees specifically targeted toward Debit Card Swipe transactions. These new fees, which we are consolidating and dubbing as “Card Association Fees” are going to complicate the pricing process for Merchant Services Providers in 2012.

Tricky Fees

Visa, MasterCard and Discover are the main players in the “card associations” and they are the driving force behind interchange and interchange rates. These associations periodically review and modify their interchange rate structures and billing strategies. What this means is that normally each year the big credit card companies get together and increase interchange rates. But after the Durbin Amendment went into effect in 2011, the credit card associations are taking pause and tweaking their own strategy. So effective April 2012 there are new Card Association Fees being implemented and these fees are not interchange fees. These are brand new processing fees created by the associations.

Visa’s New Fees

Visa has announced that beginning April 1, 2012, it will be introducing a trio of new fees:

  • A Transaction Integrity Fee
  • Revisions to its Network Acquirer Processing Fee
  • A Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF)

Transaction Integrity Fee: Visa’s Transaction Integrity Fee is a new $0.10 fee that will apply to U.S. domestic regulated and non-regulated purchase transactions made with a Visa Debit card or Visa Prepaid card that fail or do not request Custom Payment Service (CPS) qualification. The CPS rates are Visa’s best rates and apply to both regulated and non-regulated transactions. This new fee can be viewed as a definite response from Visa to the Durbin Amendment’s interchange rate cap and finance reform/regulatory changes.  This is part of the ninja-style set of moves The Official Merchant Services Blog has cited would be the reaction to the Durbin Amendment.

Network Acquirer Processing Fee: The Network Acquirer Processing Fee on Visa-branded signature debit will be reduced — going from $0.0195 per authorization to $0.0155 per authorization. The fee for credit card authorization will remain $0.0195 per authorization.

Fixed Acquirer Network Fee: FANF will apply to the acceptance of all Visa-branded products and is based on both the size and the number of merchant locations. The FANF fee will be based on volume reported in July 2012. Visa will require U.S. acquirers to provide new merchant location reporting for the tracking of this fee. The new reporting requirements will include a monthly breakdown of acquired merchants, number of merchant locations, and merchant sales volume by merchant Taxpayer ID. For Card Present merchants, with the exception of Fast Food Restaurants, a merchant Taxpayer ID with physical locations will be assessed FANF on a per-location rate basis. For example, Card Present Merchants with one to three locations will see a pass through per location per month fee of $2. Price per location per month will increase according to the number of locations – upwards of $65 month for merchants exceeding 4000 locations. Card Present High Volume MCC Merchants with one to three locations will see a pass through per location per month fee of $2.90. Price per location per month will increase according to location — upwards of $85 month for merchants exceeding 4000 locations. Customer Not Present, merchant aggregators and merchants primarily operating as Fast Food Restaurants (MCC 5814) will be assessed based on gross merchant sales volume originating from any Visa-branded card. Merchants that fall into this category with monthly gross sales volume ranging from less than $50 a month on the low end will see a $2 a month fee- to merchants with gross sales exceeding $400 million at a $40,000 a month fee. There are some 18 tiers, with a merchant falling into a volume tier of $8,000 to $39,999 a month seeing a new $15 per month FANF fee.

Visa will also effectively waive the FANF for eligible Charitable and Social Service Organizations (MCC 8398). The FANF waiver for Charitable and Social Service Organizations will be provided through a quarterly rebate process that Visa has indicated will be defined at a later date.

Continue Reading – Visa, MasterCard Add New Fees, Part 2 

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