Twice a year – in April and October – Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and AmEx release updates to their programs and fee structures. For your convenience, below is a summary of the changes that will have the most impact on merchants. A complete list of the card brand changes can be accessed here.
As always, Wind River Financial believes in transparency of all association fees applicable to merchant processing costs and passes through these new fees to our customers with no mark-ups or changes.
Visa Updates
Interregional Interchange Fee Programs
Visa is revising the interregional interchange structure to remove certain interchange fee programs and add new fee programs for consumer and commercial products.
These fee programs will no longer be assessed:
- Electronic
- Acquirer Chip
- Issuer Chip
- Electronic Commerce Merchant
- Secure Electronic Commerce
New fee programs will be introduced for Visa consumer and Visa commercial products.
- Base: Fee programs that apply to authorized, card present transactions
- Alternative: Fee programs that apply to authorized, card not present (CNP) transactions
- Downgrade: Fee programs for transactions that do not meet fee-edit criteria for other fee programs
- Credit Voucher: Fee programs that apply to merchandise return transactions.
Small Merchant Interchange Programs
Visa is implementing new Small Merchant interchange fee programs that apply to Visa consumer credit purchase transactions that qualify for CNP and card-present Custom Payment Service (CPS). Specifically, these areas:
- Restaurant
- Taxi
- Real Estate, education, and healthcare
- Advertising and insurance
- Services
- Telecommunications and cable
Existing Visa Consumer Credit Merchant Segment Fee Programs
Visa is updating the fee edit criteria for certain merchant segment interchange fee programs that apply to Visa consumer credit transactions. This affects card-not-present transactions that qualify for these programs. However, card present transactions are not affected.
Product 1 Fee Programs for Visa Consumer Credit Transaction
Visa is updating the fee edit criteria for the Product 1 interchange fee program that applies to Visa consumer credit transactions. This affects card not present transactions that qualify for this Product 1 program. However, card present transactions are not affected.
Visa Consumer Credit Fee Programs
Visa is changing interchange rates for several programs in these categories:
- Travel
- Product 2
- Product 1
- Product 1–Tokenized
- Consumer Bill Payment Service (CBPS)
Also, Visa is revising interchange rates for Supermarket and Retail threshold programs. New fee programs are being added to support unique rates based on the card product.
Existing Visa Consumer Credit Interchange Fee Descriptors and Fee Program Indicators
Visa is introducing new interchange fee programs specifically for Visa Infinite Spend Not Qualified products. These new interchange fee programs apply when a spend-qualified indicator is not present.
Visa Account Name Inquiry Pricing Changes (rescheduled for January 2024)
Visa will introduce pricing for Account Name Inquiry (ANI) in the US.
This Visa ANI functionality enables cardholder name checks as part of zero-amount account verification, part of card onboarding, periodically in advance of a purchase.
Note: Due to backlog of projects, Visa has delayed release of ANI until January 2024.
Visa Digital Commerce Services Fee will be Introduced in the US
Visa will introduce a Digital Commerce Services fee in the US to help support the management, development, and improvement of Visa services that enhance CNP transaction capabilities and improve ecosystem performance. A fee of 0.75 basis points (0.0075%) will be assessed on all CNP settled transactions, with a minimum of $0.0075 per transaction. With the introduction of this fee, Visa will no longer bill for CNP transactions on Address Verification Service (AVS) and Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2) fees in the US region.
Discover Updates
Discover Electronic US Commercial Interchange Fee Program
Discover is revising the timeliness criteria for the Electronic US Commercial interchange fee program. The 3-day timeliness for transactions with an emerging market or public service MCC will be removed. Affected merchant segments will be required to meet the standard 2-day timeliness to be eligible for the Electronic, US Commercial interchange fee program:
MasterCard Updates
MasterCard is introducing a Preauthorization Fee in the US Region
Mastercard is introducing an Acquirer Switch Fee for credit card preauthorization transactions in the US region. The new US preauthorization fee will apply to all dual message credit transactions coded as a preauthorization that is routed and processed on the Mastercard network. Debit card transactions are exempt from this fee.
Pricing will be differentiated for card-present (CP) and CNP preauthorization requests:
- CP preauthorization transactions will be assessed 0.0075 percent of the final preauthorization amount with a minimum of USD $0.01
- CNP preauthorization transactions will be assessed 0.0125 percent of the final preauthorization amount with a minimum of USD $0.01
AmEx Updates
American Express did not release any updates.
