Centurion

Could someone who absolutely understands this Visa document explain in lay person terms what it means. Please no guesss. I would appreciate knowlegable answers. Am I correct that it means the cheapest rate a merchant can get on small transactions is pay 4 cents plus 1.65%?

http://ctlr.msu.edu/download/cashiers/VisaICApr09.pdf

GUWonder

It depends on the merchant and transaction type, but for domestic transactions, you are correct in what it means.

Does this question have something to do with finding a merchant account to run up charges on a card that earns points where the earned points' value exceeds the cost of running the transaction and providing the cash back to the card holder minus the cost of running the transaction?

Centurion

No...The reason for the post and question is many businesses in the United States get hundreds of calls a year offering credit card processing at "a cheaper rate". The slime that call sometimes pretend to be your actual bank/merchant processor that you already use, etc. I wanted to know the true base rates as most work on a spread. If you are a large business or lucky you can get actual "Interchange rates" at par or plus very little.

The calls businesses recieve are kind of like the tonner or paper sales pitch of the old days. "We are your toner/paper supplier" we just needed to check the make and serial number of your machine". The company would ship the most toner/paper you ever purchased and use the unlucky employee as the authorized rep who ordered.


fyi...I just Googled and found the Visa document up on a edu site. The Mastercard one is several pages longer.

msp2anywhere

So is this the section that is involved when executing the fund-new-account-with-$xx,xxx-on-Citi AAdvantage card?

It's odd that it doesn't eliminate the option, or appear to limit it, as rumors were running as of early March.