My end of month fees are too high. What are my options?

If your month end fees are too high, we can set you up to have your fees deducted from your daily deposits. By doing this, you don't get hit with a large credit card charge at the beginning of the month for the prior month's sales. Those fees are spread out over the entire month and deducted from your daily deposits. If you choose this option, your end of month fees will be greatly reduced. This can smooth out your cash flow and make operations throughout the month easier.

What are penalties for non-compliance?

The payment brands may, at their discretion, fine an acquiring bank $5,000 to $100,000 per month for PCI compliance violations. The banks will most likely pass this fine along until it eventually hits the merchant. Furthermore, the bank will also most likely either terminate your relationship or increase transaction fees. Penalties are not openly discussed nor widely publicized, but they can be catastrophic to a small business. It is important to be familiar with your merchant account agreement, which should outline your exposure.

What is interchange?

Interchange is when the card payment transaction is passed between the merchant and NCR Payment Solutions, between us and the payment brands (such as Visa® and MasterCard®), and between the payment brands and the bank that issued the card. A fee is charged on every transaction you process. The fee is paid by the payment processor to the issuing bank through the payment brands. It is charged to cover the cost to issuing banks for offering lines of credit and fraud mitigation.

Interchange fees are determined by the payment brands. The rate that you pay for a transaction varies depending on type of card (debit, credit, and rewards card), type of transaction (the card is present, a phone order, an online order) and your average transaction volume. The fee charged is also tied to the level of risk for that transaction; the lower the risk, the lower the rate. So for example, a transaction conducted with a card that is present is a lower risk and fee than a card-not-present transaction.

In addition to interchange fees, the individual payment brands may charge a separate assessment fee, which covers the operating costs of managing their network.