Merchant Account Fees | Card Not Present, CenPOS, credit card processing

Free credit card transaction fees checkup includes self-assessment, no merchant statement sharing with third party required. Due to massive changes in card network rules over the last two years, a review is essential. This method is easier than my B2B credit card processing fact check, while still revealing problems that must be resolved. As a processor neutral payments expert, Christine Speedy offers a unique perspective.

Here’s a shortcut to determine if you have authorization problems, which directly impact credit card transaction fees. Why is this important? Because unless you fix the underlying problem, switching merchant accounts will only provide partial relief from escalating transaction fees like the new MasterCard .25% misuse of authorization fee. If you have any of these items below on your merchant statement, you have a problem. Most likely it’s a payment gateway issue.

Misuse
Integrity
Compliance or Non-compliance
Standard / STD (any)
EIRF
Data rate I
Data Rate II or Data Rate 2
Chargeback: FRAUD TRANS-NO CARDHOLDR AUTH
Chargeback reason: Compliance

Hint: If you open your merchant statement in Adobe Acrobat, in OSX with command F you can copy and paste the terms above. It’s not foolproof due to varying abbreviations, but you only need to have one of the bad items to know there’s a problem.

For card not present business to business, merchants should see these two interchange types:

Full UCAF
Data Rate III

I don’t know why, but I get calls from other salespeople in the industry looking for solutions to help customers qualify for Data Rate II. Why wouldn’t you want the customer to qualify at Data Rate III? Makes no sense.

I also hear from merchants how they were told that the new solution would fix their level 3 data problems, but it didn’t. If you do preauthorizations, and the solution doesn’t automatically get new authorizations and manage reversals it’s not going to fix authorization problems. Always ask, “how will the payment gateway manage authorization reversals if we don’t settle for the original preauthorization amount’? That’s one of several critical key questions. If they don’t know the answer instantly, move on.

Due to massive changes in card network rules and data security compliance rules over the last two years, a review by a neutral payments expert is essential. Did you have any red items? It’s time for a deeper dive into why. Your FREE report will identify issues impacting profits and security, include action items how to fix them, and rarely requires changing financial partners.

credit card transaction fee checkup form

Click to download FREE credit card transaction checkup form.

Your FREE report will identify issues impacting profits and security, include action items how to fix them, and won’t require changing financial partners (in most cases).

Call Christine Speedy, PCI Council QIR certified, to reduce merchant fees with new or existing merchant account at 954-942-0483, 9-5 ET. CenPOS authorized reseller based out of South Florida and NY. CenPOS is an integrated commerce technology platform driving innovative, omnichannel solutions tailored to meet a merchant’s market needs. Providing a single point of integration, the CenPOS platform combines payment, commerce and value-added functionality enabling merchants to transform their commerce experience, eliminate the need to manage complex integrations, reduce the burden of accepting payments and create deeper customer relationships.

I often hear from CFO’s that more credit card processing companies call on them than any other vendor. So with over 100-1000 calls per year, how do merchants sort through it all and choose your blog host? Tenacity is often cited, but that’s only part of the equation. My keys:

1. Education on pricing– I educate customers on the 4 core elements including which costs are negotiable, which are not, which can be influenced, and which ones may vary by vendor (some may have higher fixed costs than others).
2. Reporting– You must have completely transparent reports in order to identify the costs above, as well as to manage them. I show you what a transparent report looks like and help you understand it. How do you use data for reconciliation?
3. Interchange management. Once you have the right pricing and detailed reports, it’s time to attack interchange qualification. Most of your money, over 95% is paid in interchange fees. Many merchants think the processor gets the money, but that’s not the case. Ensuring you hit the lowest interchange for any given card presented is the next step.
This can be achieved through many different methods, and will never be completely transparent to the merchant because you simply cannot see everything that goes into why a transaction qualifies. With good reporting, you CAN find out why a transaction downgraded. But of course, you’d also have to know WHICH transactions downgraded and WHY in order to fix it. An expert is really needed for this step. Someone who will ‘watch your back’. That’s where I come in. I’ll do most of this behind the scenes and we’ll also have Webex conferences to review your account, including a statement review.
4. Continuing Education– Let’s face it we’re all busy people and sometimes don’t have time to get to anything new unless it’s forced upon us. I’m your force. If something must be done, like PCI Compliance, you’ll hear from me. If there’s new technology (from any vendor) you can implement that will make your job easier, I’ll call you. I’ll advise you of pros and cons, risks and rewards, and quantify it whenever possible so you can focus on what you do best.

* (If you were not aware of the above before, would you go back to your old processor and renegotiate, or would you say, they’ve earned the right to have my business? If you intend to go back to your processor don’t disappear, thank me by paying me a fee to help you renegotiate your contract.)

Card Not Present, CenPOS, credit card processing

B2B Cloud payment processing technology blog about increasing profits, efficiency and security.

Tag Archives: merchant account fees

Credit card transaction fees checkup

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