Let’s start out with a heads up: this is going to be a deep dive into business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) rates. If you’re new to payment processing, or need a refresher on Interchange, we suggest you start with our What is Interchange? FAQ. As a reminder: Interchange is a fee [...]
PIN vs. Signature - What's the Difference?There are two basic types of debit transactions – PIN Debit, and Signature Debit. You could consider card-not-present debit card transactions as a third type, but since you have no control over them, let’s just set that aside. PIN Debit occurs when a customer [...]
Mastercard Consumer Credit Cards Mastercard offers many different types of credit cards to consumers. Each of these cards have varying “perks” or “rewards” that the customer receives. Different banks will issue different types of cards to their customers, and each card costs the issuing bank money to issue, support, etc [...]
Visa Consumer Credit Cards Visa offers many different types of credit cards to consumers. Each of these cards have varying “perks” or “rewards” that the customer receives. Different banks will issue different types of cards to their customers, and each card costs the issuing bank money to issue, support, etc – [...]
It’s the fairest model out there. Interchange-plus pricing works by adding a constant, flat margin on top of Interchange. So typically, Interchange-plus pricing models will also be written in the two component format, with a percentage fee and per-transaction fee above Interchange. This allows merchant service providers to price their accounts fairly, [...]
What is Interchange?It’s the underlying cost of a credit card sale. There are many entities involved whenever you process a credit card transaction. First, there is the acquiring bank, who Dharma represents. Dharma and other MSPs are referred to as Merchant Service Providers. As you will discover merchant services are varied, but the [...]
Credit CardsMastercard credit cards are issued to customers not by Mastercard, but by an issuing bank. These credit cards will have varying terms/rewards, as every bank is different. The below guide is a handy reference to see how cards are typically classified. Note that issuing banks have a lot of [...]
Credit CardsVisa credit cards are issued to customers not by Visa, but by an issuing bank. These credit cards will have varying terms/rewards, as every bank is different. The below guide is a handy reference to see how cards are typically classified. Note that issuing banks have a lot of [...]
Most in-person merchants will qualify for Visa’s CPS Retail rate structure. CPS stands for “Custom Payment Service”. The CPS classification is typically known as the best basic rate structure offered by Visa, and CPS requirements are often the “minimum” qualification requirements for more advanced interchange rates. Read all about CPS here. In a [...]
Standard rates are the worst rates that you can receive on Visa cards. Typically, you’ll receive Standard rates when your sales don’t meet any of the basic qualifications. This can include not submitting AVS data, not settling your sales on time, or failing to submit otherwise required data, based on [...]