It’s a word thrown out often, but what exactly is interchange? To put it simply, interchange is the largest portion of fees which merchants pay to accept credit cards. When a credit card is swiped, there is a set of fees associated with the transaction; interchange represents the bulk of these fees, and goes to card issuing banks to pay for their services.

Each transaction is classified into one of the hundreds of interchange categories (see a sample here). How the transactions are classified is pretty complicated, and depends on a number of questions regarding the details of the transaction. Click on the infographic below to learn more.

While we were attending the Future of Money Summit in San Francisco, a few non-profit companies came up and asked us what their options were for accepting donations by credit card. Non-profits are very vulnerable to being ripped off by processors because of a lack of understanding about the credit card processing industry, so here are some tips when considering the options:

1) Consider what types of transactions you will have.

Some non-profits take one time donations while others take recurring donations. This can greatly influence which processing option is best. Handling recurring donations is best done with a merchant account since the whole process can be automated based on the payment schedule and payment amounts. If your non-profit rarely takes donations but woud still like to have the option, consider Square, a new service which allows the iPhone to be used as a terminal without signing up for a merchant account. The fees are a bit higher, but are worth it for infrequent transactions.

2) Avoid third party processors.

Third party processing is not a good option for most non-profits for a number of reasons. When a third party processor is used, it is their name that shows up on the donor’s credit card statement, instead of your non-profit’s name. This greatly increases the chance for chargebacks (since the donor may not recognize the processor’s name) which are costly. Also, since third party processors process your donations using their own merchant account, there is usually a lag in the time needed to give your organization the money donated.  Advantages to using a third party processor are that it’s usually easier, and may be slightly cheaper. The most well known third party processor is PayPal, which has special options for non-profits.

3) Consider getting a merchant account- but be informed

Merchant accounts can often be the cheapest and easiest way for non-profits to accept donations. However, the key to getting a good deal on a merchant account is to be well informed and know exactly what pricing structure to request. Otherwise, the process can become frustrating and complicated. A big advantage to getting a merchant account is that your non-profit’s name will be on the donor’s credit card statement, which greatly reduces the chance for chargebacks. Also, the funds from donations will flow directly into the non-profit’s bank account without a delay. Since the biggest disadvantage to getting a merchant account is a lack of knowledge, make sure to do your research. Make sure to demand an interchange plus pricing structure (learn more about interchange plus here) and use TransFS to get the best apples-to-apples comparison. Also, take advantage of our free savings analysis to learn how much you can be saving (fax your statement to us for the confidential analysis).

Users often ask me how to tell an interchange plus quote from a tiered pricing quote.   First, some background:

• Interchange is the wholesale rate your processor pays Visa and Mastercard (and is not negotiable)
• Interchange plus pricing is the best way to ensure you are not getting ripped off because it is completely clear how much of a markup the processor is making on your business
• Tiered pricing is prone to abuse because the “downgrade” rates (which are much higher than the quoted rate) are not always disclosed and the precise rules of what triggers a downgrade are never disclosed (processors freely admit that they make more money this way by confusing customers)

Interchange plus:

An interchange plus quote will sound like “interchange PLUS 0.20% PLUS $0.20″ – that’s why its called interchange plus.  The PLUS part is the markup that the processor is making on top of interchange.  It will always be less than 0.50% of your volume and $0.30 per transaction, anything more than that is way too high.  What they are quoting you is the markup.  On average interchange rates are about 1.77%, but it does vary depending on what kind of cards your customers use, your average ticket size and the type of business you are (for example, the average rate for ecommerce interchange rate is higher at around 2.06%).

Tiered:

With Tiered pricing usually just one price is quoted (called a qualified rate).  It will always be more than 1%.  For example they will quote 1.6% or 2.3%.  What they do not tell you is that ALWAYS, there is something called a downgrade, where a large portion of your transactions will be classified as a Midqualified or Nonqualified rate.  Often, the salesperson will not tell you about those rate unless specifically asked – they count on making most of their money by marking up those rates really high and you not paying attention.

It is very hard to compare one tiered pricing plan to another, because even if the qualified rate, nonqualified rate and the midqualified rate are the same, the rules about which transactions fall into each category can be different. 

Everyone should avoid Tiered pricing (and its more evil cousin ERR pricing — http://transfs.com/blog/2009/10/09/enhanced-recover-reduced/). 

But, if for some reason you do not, here are some questions to ask to make sure you are getting the full story on the quote.  Let’s say that they quoted you a 1.6% rate.  Ask them:

• 1.6%, does that apply to every single transaction?
• What about a rewards card?  How much is that?
• How about a business card?  How much is that?
• What happens if the customer calls in the order and doesnt sign the receipt?  How much does that cost?
• What about debit cards, I know that debit cards have a lower interchange rate (even when the customer doesn’t type in the PIN), so shouldn’t I be getting a lower rate for debit cards?

Asking those questions will help you get a more fair deal, but the only way to be entirely sure you are getting the best deal is to get interchange plus pricing from a reputable processor that is TransFS certified.

Interchange is the fee that businesses pay directly to credit card issuers for the service of processing their credit cards. Visa and Mastercard publish their rates for public knowledge, while American Express does not. After doing some digging, we found that the American Express 2007 Annual Report reveals that, on average, Amex’s discount rate was 2.56% (2007), 2.57% (2006) and 2.58% (2005).

Compare this to Visa’s interchange rate, which averages out to be 0.77% lower.

Keep in mind that the average Amex discount rates shown above are an average and include a much lower interchange rate that large companies can negotiate with Amex. A great example of this kind of partnership is Amex’s deal with Costco (as discussed in Paying with Plastic p. 169).  After accepting only Discover card for eight years, Costco signed an exclusivity agreement with Amex which industry experts say put Costco’s Amex interchange rate at about 1.11%.  In return, Costco customers had membership cards which doubled as American Express credit cards.

Compare that 1.11% to the fact that small businesses pay about 3.25-2.75% for Amex interchange.

Let TransFS help you find the best deal on credit card processing for your business. Start here to get multiple bids from top quality processors at no cost, all apples-to-apples comparison, and transparent pricing. What you see is what you get. Users save an average of 40% on credit card processing with the most transparent pricing: interchange plus.

TransFS uses Interchange Plus pricing in our credit card processor marketplace. The biggest chunk of change that processors charge is Interchange, but what does that really mean?

Two of the things that confuse merchants the most are:

1. Why they are charged different amounts when different kinds of cards are used
2. Who gets to keep the 1.5% – 3.0% of their hard-earned sales that are siphoned away as “discounts” and “fees”

A big part of the answer to both of those questions is: “Interchange”.

What is Interchange?

Interchange is the set of rules that define how much of a cut the issuing bank (the bank that issued the customers’ credit card, big issuing banks include Capital One and MBNA) gets to keep from the credit card transaction.

The part of the transaction that you see:

The back-end of the transaction (where the money flows):

How big is interchange?

Interchage is the largest piece of the transaction, usually 70-90% of processing fees. Basically, the card issuing bank captures most of the economics of the transaction.

• Morgan Stanley estimates that interchange is, on average, 1.75%, or 81% of the total fees charged to the merchant on the transaction.
• The Kansas City Fed estimates that interchange is, on average, 1.60%. However, their data was from 2003 and earlier, which may account for the difference in the estimates, since Interchange tends to rise every year.

Why should I care?

When negotiating a deal with your credit card processor it helps to know how much of a cut they are getting for two reasons:

• It lets you know how much they are making off or you and therefore how much room they have to negotiate
• The main rate that a processor will quote is on a standard credit card transaction.  With the rise of rewards cards and debit cards, these “standard” cards make up the minority of transactions.  If you focus your energy on negotiating a good “standard” rate, with a fair markup for your processor, they probably will sneak in a much larger markup on the rewards and debit cards. An example of that can be found in “Reading a Merchant Processing Statement“

Until recently interchange rates were secret, but now you can get a full description of them at the Visa and Mastercard websites: Visa interchange rates , Mastercard interchange rates.For a chart of different interchange rates, click here.

The insurance industry, including carriers, brokers and agents increasingly accepts credit cards. Typically such businesses accept payment from their customers over the phone or computer, more similar to an internet business than a retail store.

Insurance companies have the added benefit, however, of a special category for Mastercard transactions (no special category exists for Visa, however).  The full mastercard interchange guide is available at mastercard.com and below is a summary.

The Mastercard insurance interchange rates are significantly lower than for other industries. To ensure you are getting the lowest possible rates:

1. insist on interchange plus pricing
2. ensure that you are set up to qualify for your industry-specific rates
3. audit your bill afterward to ensure you are getting those rates

The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) recently reported that ultimately consumers are the ones bearing the brunt of paying for inflated interchange fees.  Interchange fees have been in the spotlight in Washington, especially with last month’s report from the GAO (Government Accountability Office) which suggested that credit card companies and their banks are the ones profiting from higher fees, as merchants and consumers face rising costs.

The RILA has encouraged Congress to take action, as has The American Consumer Institute, which claims that this holiday season, the average household will pay $337 in “swipe fees.” Higher interchange fees have also hindered job creation in a sluggish economy where every dollar counts.

“Retail job creation is stifled in part by the rapidly escalating costs associated with credit card interchange ‘swipe’ fees,” said John Emling, senior vice president of government affairs for the group. “Every additional dollar taken by banks through these excessive fees is a dollar unavailable to hire new employees and lower costs for customers.”

Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/12/retailers_interchange.html#ixzz0ZIi3BaTV

Image thanks to  http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035555243@N01/116585861/

Photo by Thomas Hawk http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/

As a frequent visitor to NYC (at least 6 times / year) and Boston (which recently added a similar program) I really like the ability to pay for cabs with a credit card and I wish Chicago had it too.  A recent Huffington Post article Cash or Credit? In a Taxi, It Depends Which Side of the Partition You’re On describes some of the challenges faxed by cab drivers in that situation.

A recent story in the New York Times reported that credit card use in the city’s yellow cabs has risen steeply, suggesting that cabbies are making more money because of it… To the contrary, it appears they in fact have been hit with a pay cut, in the form of credit card processing fees, payment delays, bunk cards, chargebacks, and system failures.

While most businesses, from bodegas to bars, are charged an average of 2% on credit card processing fees, when you swipe your card in a cab, the driver has to pay a hefty 5% for the transaction. This fee is placed on the total metered fare, including the tolls, the tip, and now, even on the fifty-cent MTA surcharge. Why are New York’s cabbies paying so much more than everybody else?

Because of all the middlemen.

That 5% goes back to the garage or medallion broker, where the owners take an average cut of 1.5%. The rest is passed along to the TLC-selected vendor supplying the device. That company takes out another average cut of 1.5% and then, finally, passes the rest on to the bank that is actually processing the credit card. Multiply these numbers by millions of cab rides a year and it becomes clear that a few people are making truckloads of money on drivers’ backs.

That’s actually not that different from most smaller businesses (see previous article average credit card processing rates) – small businesses usually pay a 1%-3% markup over the wholesale (or interchange) rate for their transaction.  There are two reasons for it – 1. it costs more for the processors to reach them so the processors need to build those sales costs into the price  and  2. they operate at a big informational disadvantage and are taken advantage of by the processors and/or the middlemen.

It stinks that the cabbies are not given choice in which processor they use.  If they had a choice they could shop on their own (or use TransFS!!) to cut out the middlemen and get a fair deal.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at length with a TransFS user who is a member of the Wine and Spirits Guild of America. He told me about his quest to learn as much about credit card processing as possible in a marketplace with few resources.

Luckily, he came acrossTransFS and discovered the wealth of resources on our site, as well as our comparison shopping engine for credit card processors. He suggested posting some resources for business owners in the same predicament as he was…so here they are!

How Merchant Accounts Work

Tiered Pricing for Merchant Accounts

Interchange Plus Pricing

Why You Should Want Interchange Plus Pricing

Reading an Interchange Plus Processing Statement

Explaining the Fees Charged

Equipment and Terminals

Businesweek recently profiled a small boutique’s struggle and success in getting lower credit card processing costs. With revenue of $350,000, the business was able to save about $4,000 using the strategies listed below.

A recurring trend that we see from our users is they are told by processors the fee they are paying is one number, but then when the business researches and calculates their actual rate, it equals sometimes double or triple what they thought they were paying.  The same happened to the business profiled in the article, which leveraged some research to bring down her fees.

We applaud business owners’ efforts to learn as much as they can about the credit card processing industry, and we function to provide businesses with an unbiased, apples-to-apples comparison from top quality processors.  We know it’s a tough,  complicated market which functions to confuse business owners, so we strive to make the process simple and easy for businesses. Below are some helpful tips to cut processing costs which we’ve mentioned before,  however they are highlighted in the Businessweek article:

1)   Get multiple bids from processors- Plan on getting at least three bids from multiple processors when shopping for a credit card processor. Businesses can leverage competing bids, but also get an idea as to a suitable range for cost.

2)   Never lease a terminal- The business in the article was paying $50/month to lease a terminal when one can be purchased for more than half the cost of leasing. This is a typical practice, so make sure to do as much research/cost analysis as possible on buying a terminal.

3)   Negotiation is the name of the game- Use the research from shopping to go back to processors with aggressive cuts. The margin for sales is incredibly high, so are rates are much more flexible than businesses realize. Make sure to try and get rid of monthly fees.

4)   Make sure to fully understand billing statements- Even after the contract is signed, make sure processors don’t sneak in random fees or arbitrary costs. Confusing billing statements are standard industry practice from processors capitalizing on their clients’  misunderstanding.

5) Interchange plus only- In contrast to confusing tiered pricing which charges different rates based on how “qualified” a credit card is, interchange plus is the most transparent form of pricing. Learn more about interchange pricing here.

6)   Use TransFS- Ok, so we’re a little biased, but we know from talking to business owners how confusing finding a processor can be. Heck we’ve done it ourselves in previous businesses. TransFS is the place you can find the best deals on high quality processors who are screened to provide businesses with transparent pricing.  Use our platform to ask processors straight up questions about costs and contracts, and please ask us any other questions you may have about processing. We are here to serve businesses and help you keep more of your money.