E-Com Solutions/EXPRESS CHECKS

First of many informative tips to come,

Oh where to start.  Credit Cards has to be one of the most confussing issues today.  It takes the average representative a year or more to understand what they are trying to tell you the merchant (a representative is the guy/gal that enters your business trying to lowering your rates)

With that being said here's Interchange 101: (Interchange is visa/mastercard official term for your FEE!)

It would be the easiest and smartest move you ever made to tell your credit card service provider that you want interchange plus .20 basis points and a .04 cents transaction fee.

 Interchange again being the wholesale rate from Visa/MasterCard such as 1.02% & .10 cents for debit cards without 4-digit pin (this fee goes to the card issuing bank such as Wachovia/Capital One/ Bank of America--how do you think they pay for rewards) +0.10% for visa/MC assessment fee(Visa/MasterCard always receive the same fee on every transaction; actually .0925 for Visa and .09525 for MC). Now, you have the wholesale INTERCHANGE, and the plus is the fee that goes to everyone else involved.  The plus equals .20% + .04 cents totaling 1.32% + .14 cents.  How many of you have a rate as low as 1.32 + .14 cents!  This rate is only for debit cards, and each company Visa and MC have 150 different card types with different rates.

If you are scratching out your eyes I understand :)  This is very difficult and not for the faint of heart.

If you want to verse yourself in the world of interchange you can google VISA INTERCHANGE and it will give you a current list of all interchange rates and you can begin to fathom the pain of a interchange specialist on a day to day basis.  This is the beauty of interchange plus...You don't have to know about all 150 rates; all you do is swipe the card and you receive the wholesale price plus the two/tenths of a percent mark-up. SIMPLE!!!!

For those who hate simple: Next blog, we will go more into the detail of of individual rates and talk about small ticket merchants such as restaurants and coffee shops...Really, anyone with an average ticket of $15 or less.

  Thanks for reading.  If you have questions feel free to post or email r.strippy@ecomsolutions.org