The Rates of Retail Merchant Account

Card-present transaction environments decrease the risk of deceitful card payments. The cardholder has the card in his physical possession and the payment information is read from the card’s magnetic stripe as it is swiped through the terminal. If there is any suspicion of fraudulent activity, the merchant can physically examine the card and compare the cardholder’s signature on the back panel to the one the customer provided on the sales receipt. In gratitude of the lower processing risk, associated with retail merchant accounts, the Credit Card Associations have set lower interchange rates for card-present transactions. The processing rate, at which a transaction is processed, is the sum of the interchange rate for this particular card type and the processing cost incurred by the merchant bank. Besides processing rates there are other fees and charges that merchants pay for their processing accounts. Following is a breakdown of retail merchant account processing rates and fees and our suggestions as per what they should be. • Discount rate. It is a percentage of the transaction amount. You should pay no more than 1.69% for credit cards and 1.40% for debit cards. These are the rates for consumer cards which are the most extensively used. Various business to business, commercial, rewards and other types of cards often get charged at a higher interchange rate (the base processing rates set by Visa and MasterCard). You need to ask your merchant services provider what pricing structure they are using. The best choice for you will most likely be the pass-through pricing which will ensure that the payment processing costs they add to the interchange fees are the same for all types of cards and you will not get overcharged. • Transaction fee. It is a fixed dollar amount that you pay for each transaction. You should not accept anything higher than [inserttext].20 (it will be the same for debit and credit cards). • Set up fee. You should not be paying any set up or application fees, whatever your prospective processor tells you! • Monthly maintenance fee. Every merchant account provider will charge you such a monthly fee, although they might have dissimilar names for it. You should not be paying more than . • Support fee. one more monthly fee that you should not agree on paying. There are many things that you should learn about Visa Merchant Account. Being a businessman, you should understand that having your own Visa Merchant Account will help your business and having your own Visa Merchant Account will give you an edge over your competitors.