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  Aidah Sama

  • December 10, 2017 11:13

  What exactly are card association fees? I don't remember seeing that before when I signed up and why does it seem your fees penalize the bigger merchant?

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  Daniel C

  • December 15, 2017 23:52
  • Edited

  Hello Aidah,

  The information you have requested is below. For further help regarding merchant processing information, please call 800-919-0157 opt. 2 for support.

   

  • Fees for Access to Card Brand Services
  • Fixed Acquirer Network Fee or FANF
  • Annual Location Fee for MC

   

  Card Brand Fees (also known as Card Association Fees) are the fees that are actually paid back to Visa/MasterCard/Discover. These are also commonly referred to as NABU fees (Network Access and Brand Usage fees). Most merchants don’t realize that the vast majority of the fees paid aren’t actually paid to the Card Associations, but instead to the banks that physically issue the cards (for example a Chase Slate card charges a fee which Chase receives). There are literally dozens of different small circumstantial fees charged by the associations that apply in all different circumstances. Keep in mind that these are not charged by Vagaro Merchant Services (VMS). These are fees collected by VMS and immediately passed through to the Corporate brand of card your customer used. Here are all of the potential assessment fees (as of March 2017), although many merchants may never be subject to many of these specific fees.

   

  

  Visa Assessments

  Visa Fee	Pass-Through cost
  Credit Assessments	0.13% of credit card volume and $0.0195/transaction. For a $100 credit sale, Visa takes about 15 cents.
  Debit Assessments	0.13% of debit card volume and $0.0155/transaction. For a $20 debit sale, Visa takes about 4.2 cents.
  FANF	Fixed Acquirer Network Fee – Visa charges this flat fee based on how much volume you process per month.
  International Service Assessment Fee	Any card you accept from outside the US will be subject to a 0.80% international surcharge from Visa.
  International Acquirer Fee	This fee applies under identical circumstances as above – there is an additional 0.45% surcharge from Visa.
  Transaction Integrity Fee (TIF)	This $0.20/transaction fee is assessed when a settled debit/prepaid card doesn’t meet CPS requirements – such as submitting AVS info on keyed sales and settling every 24 hours.
  Zero Floor Limit Fee	This $0.20/transaction fee is assessed when a settled transaction can’t be linked to a proper authorization.
  Zero Dollar Verification Fee	This rarely applied fee of $0.025/transaction applies when cardholder information (AVS, CCV) is verified without authorizing the sale.
  Misuse of Authorization Fee	This $0.09/transaction fee applies to all authorized transactions that do not have a matching settled sale.
  Kilobyte Access Fee	This $0.0047/transaction fee is charged for each authorized transaction submitted for settlement.
  Settlement Network Access Fee	This $0.0025/transaction fee is charged for all US-based settled transactions.

   

  

  MasterCard Assessments

  MasterCard Fee	Pass-Through cost
  Credit/Debit Assessments	0.12% of card volume and $0.0195/transaction for sales under $1,000. For a $100 sale, MasterCard takes about 14 cents.
  Credit/Debit Assessments	0.13% of card volume and $0.0195/transaction for sales over $1,000. For a $2,000 sale, MasterCard takes about $2.62.
  Digital Enablement Fee	This fee is 0.01% of volume, and applies on Card-Not-Present sales for commercial cards, consumer credit cards, and signature debit cards.
  Cross Border Assessment Fee (Domestic)	Any card you accept from outside the US will be subject to a 0.60% international surcharge from MasterCard.
  Cross Border Assessment Fee (Foreign)	Any card you accept from outside the US that is settled in non-US dollars will be subject to a 1.00% international surcharge from MasterCard.
  Acquirer Program Support Fee	This 0.85% fee applies to any cards you accept from outside the US, just like the Cross Border Assessment Fee (domestic).
  AVS Fee (Card-Present)	MasterCard assesses a $0.005/transaction fee for using Address Verification Services in a Card-Present environment.
  AVS Fee (Card-Not-Present)	MasterCard assesses a $0.0075/transaction fee for using Address Verification Services in a Card-Not-Present environment.
  Card Validation Code Fee	There is a $0.0025/transaction fee for all transactions that are submitted with the Card Validation Code (also known as Card Code Verification or CCV).
  Kilobyte Access Fee	This $0.00444/transaction fee is charged for each authorized transaction submitted for settlement.
  Acquirer License Fee	This 0.0045% fee is assessed on all processing volume.
  Processing Integrity Fee	This $0.055/transaction fee is charged when transactions are not settled within 24 hours for Card-Present sales, or 72 hours for Card-Not-Present sales.
  Account Status Inquiry Fee	This rarely applied fee of $0.025/transaction applies when cardholder information (AVS, CCV) is verified without authorizing the sale.
  Annual Location Fee	This $15 fee is assessed to all merchants on a per-location basis. For each location you have, MasterCard will assess $15. This fee is billed in February.

   

  

  Discover Assessments

  Discover Fee	Pass-Through cost
  Credit/Debit Assessments	0.13% of card volume and $0.0185/transaction for all sales. For a $100 sale, Discover takes about 15 cents.
  International Processing Fee	Any card you accept from outside the US will be subject to a 0.40% international surcharge from Discover.
  International Service Fee	This 0.55% fee applies to any cards you accept from outside the US, just like the International Processing Fee.
  Network Authorization Fee	This $0.025/transaction fee is charged for each authorized transaction submitted for settlement.

   

  

  American Express Assessments

  AMEX Fee	Pass-Through cost
  Credit/Debit Assessments	0.15% of card volume is paid directly to American Express. On a $100 sale, this works out to 15 cents.
  Card-Not-Present Surcharge	American Express will charge 0.30% of all Card-Not-Present volume
  International Assessement	This 0.40% fee applies to any cards you accept from outside the US

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  Morgan Gustavson

  • January 03, 2019 06:01

  What update can you provide for customers in Canada? Is there an ETA on processing?

  In the meantime, do you offer any sort of integration with external processors? I can't find any documentation on that.

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  Charles I

  • April 12, 2019 14:56

  Hi Morgan. We are currently in discussions regarding this, but I can't give you an ETA.

  Unfortunately, we don't integrate with other processors at this time. We will notify all the businesses once credit card processing is offered in Canada. 

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  Claudia Cruz

  • June 02, 2019 11:00

  Why are the card fees absorbed in small merchant accounts and not larger accounts? Seems like we’re being punished for having larger purchases.

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  Charles I

  • June 03, 2019 18:27

  Hi Claudia. It's based on how we structured the rates. The small plan has a flat 2.75 percent processing fee, which covers everything. The Large plan has a smaller rate of 2.2 percent + 19cents, but due to the rate being that much lower, we no longer cover the Visa/Master card fees. The merchant becomes responsible for them. I will send your request to the management team. 

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• 

  Halla Pulver

  • September 01, 2019 07:12

  What is the difference between swiped fee and typed fee? How can I avoid the the larger fee?

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  Charles I

  • September 05, 2019 15:23

  Hi Halla. You get charged the swiped fee when you swipe the credit card with the reader or use the chip reader. A typed fee is what you receive when you manually enter the credit card number or use a credit card on file. It's deemed a higher risk fee, which is why the cost is slightly higher. Online transactions are also bucketed in the typed fee transactions. I hope this provides more clarification. 

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