A Guide to Hidden Merchant Account Fees

Article submitted by: Solid Trust Pay

Being able to accept credit card payments is a necessity in today’s business world where cashless payments are the preferred method of payment. As a business owner wanting your business to succeed you will want open a merchant account enabling credit card transactions. But here is word of caution, do not rush in to opening a merchant account without thoroughly checking on the fees and costs that it involves, as there are many costs that you learn about as you are charged for them while they were withheld from you at the time of opening the account. Here are some of the most common hidden costs associated with merchant accounts that you should be aware of:

Annual fees

There will be no mention of annual fees in the information provided to you, but most merchant banks will charge you an annual fee.

Internet gateway fee

This fee will be charged from you if you are accepting online credit card payments through an internet gateway. You may not be aware of this fee as it is most often billed by the gateway provider. This fee could include a monthly amount as well as a per transaction fee.

Different types of cards will be charged different rates

The merchant bank will highlight a special rate which will tempt you into opening an account with that bank only to find out that that special rate is applicable only to one particular type of card whereas transactions made with other card types will have a different fee structure applicable to them.

Minimum monthly fee

You will be required to maintain a certain number of credit and debit card transactions per month and a minimum rate will be charged from you irrespective of whether or not the minimum number is met or not.

Chargeback fees

This is important if you are running an online business where the occurrences of chargebacks are high, find out how you will be charged for chargebacks.

PIN debit transaction fee

A fixed per transaction fee will be charged if you use a debit transaction fee where the PIN number has to be typed in to process debit card transactions. If there is a large volume of debit card transactions you can save by using a Signature Debit transaction where there is no added charge.

Address verification service fee

Mandatory for all Visa and MasterCard transactions this is an added security feature to reduce fraud where a merchant keys in a credit card number and billing address to make sure they tally with the delivery address. This service is provided by the merchant banks for a fee.

Open a merchant account and get the benefits from it while saving on unnecessary costs by finding out about the hidden fees behind the merchant account.