Visa & MasterCard Interchange Rate Resources

Visa/MasterCard Interchange rates are set fees that are charged for every transaction. The same rate is charged regardless of the size of the merchant. However, many small and mid-sized merchants may be paying significantly more than just the Interchange rate on each transaction.

That's because many merchant acquirers - contracted by the merchant to handle its card transactions - significantly mark up Interchange rates to generate extra revenue. With automatic debits from their bank accounts, small and mid-sized merchants are often not aware of how high these markups can actually be.

And, often, what initially looks like a "good deal" is not what it appears to be. A merchant acquirer may quote a low rate for a specific type of card transaction to "make the sale" - but deliberately neglect to point out that only a small percentage of transactions qualify for that low rate... and the remainder are charged at a fee that could be as much as double or triple the low rate.

Be sure to identify all of the costs you are paying so you know the total cost of processing. Once you know what goes to the card issuing bank and Visa/MasterCard versus the merchant acquirer, you can begin reducing costs that are unnecessarily being paid.