Visa has announced more changes to debit
pricing structure, which will take effect April 2012. When the Federal Government decided to get
involved in price control to cap debit card fees, it was addressed by the
interchange reimbursement fees. Now the
cat and mouse game has begun. Now Vise
has added fees under what is called “acquirer fees”. This will get passed on to the merchant but
escapes the Durbin rules.
On with the details:
The new Transaction Integrity Fee (TIF) of $0.10 will be assessed in debit and
prepaid card transactions that do not qualify for Custom Payment Service (CPS).
The TIF is charged in addition to the applicable interchange fee.
The Acquirer
Processing Fee (APF) will
be reduced from $0.0195 to $0.0155 per authorization for debit transactions.
(It will remain $0.0195 per authorization for credit transactions.)
The Interlink Switch Fee will change from $0.035 per
transaction to $0.0225 + 0.08% (8 basis points), capped at $0.035 per
transaction.
The
new Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) will be assessed per merchant per
month. This is the new name for the previously announced Network
Participation Fee. For card present merchants, the FANF is
based on the number of locations, and will be $2.00-$5.00 per location per
month for most merchants. For card not present merchants and fast food
restaurants, the FANF is based on sales volume, and will be $2.00-$15.00 per
month for most merchants. (The fee is higher for larger merchants.)
The FANF is based on a merchant’s taxpayer
identification number (TIN), just like the recently introduced 1099-K from the
IRS. This places even greater importance on obtaining accurate taxpayer
information for all merchants, including the legal name of the business and its
TIN.
