The two major bankcard associations in the USA, Visa and Mastercard, have announced minor assessment fee increases to take affect in April and July 2010.
MasterCard has already announced that effective April 2010, assessments will increase from .0950 to 0.110%. Visa quickly followed up with an announcement that their assessment fees will increase from .0925 to .11% as of July 1, 2010. Visa also announced minor increases on severalVisa Check Card categories.
Two important things to take from these announcements:
First, while obviously no business owner wants to see expense increases in any form, particulary during tough economic times, it is clear as a result of “doing the math” that these increases amount to mere pennies and nickels for the vast majority of small to medium sized small businesses, and as a result are not a cause for overstated alarm. Unfortunately, price increases are a by-product of the times, and the card associations face increased costs in doing business just like every other business out there.
Secondly, and most importantly, merchants are urged to guard again unscrupulous merchant services salespeople who come out of the woodwork every time adjustments of this type are announced in an attempt to cash in and steal a few gullible merchants away from their current processor. They do so with a sales pitch urging merchants to fire they mean old processor who just raised their rates and sign up with their company who, of course, would never dream of raising rates. The problem here that many merchants fail to understand is that Interchange rates like these that come directly from Visa and Mastercard apply equally to ALL processors and ALL merchants, so going to the trouble and expense of switching processors accomplishes nothing.
[...] Visa and MasterCard Announce Merchant Fee Increases | The Merchant … [...]
Kind of opens up the to PIN or not to PIN conversation…