We’ve done a lot of articles in the past on Interchange and what to look out for and yet, we still see small merchants getting trapped into long term contracts at rates so high, you might as well be sending in paper deposits. So we’ll stress again how important it is to pay attention to [...]
When Rates Are ‘Too Good’ to Be True And How to Tell
My mother used to tell me all the time, if it looks “too good to be true” than it probably is. This advice is applicable to all walks of life and especially pertinent to Merchant Service Providers. We all have the inner critic that screams inside us when we know we see something good, so [...]
Canadian Credit Card Processing Wars
Tim Wilson at the NationalPost wrote yesterday an interesting piece on Canada’s Credit Card Wars over regulating interchange and allowing Visa to introduce debit cards in Canada. Tim states, “While we respect businesses’ desire to manage their expenses, government intervention is not the right solution in a functioning industry.” I know many Merchants who would [...]
A Great Merchant Account Q & A
I was answering a merchant’s question(s) today and realized that a lot of what these two individuals were asking would relate to a lot of other Merchants so, I asked if I could add their questions to my blog and they (very kindly) agreed. I did however change their names to ‘John’ & ‘Jane’ and [...]
MasterCard Fights Back Against Interchange Myths
Mastercard Canada released a press release a couple of days ago announcing they have accepted an opportunity to appear before the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce in order to discuss the payments industry, as well as to address the significant misinformation being propagated by retail sector lobbyists. “The many benefits Canadian merchants [...]
Did Your Merchant Account Provider Send You This Letter?
It is almost April 1st 2009 which means most providers will be adjusting their (MDR’s) Merchant Discount Rates in Canada because Visa adjusts their interchange rates. Look through your statements over the last 2 months and see if you received anything like you saw in the video above. If you did, this is a good [...]
Would Your Business Survive This Recession Without The Ability to Accept Credit Cards?
Aneace Haddad did an interview with MasterCard’s Shawn Miles and there were some interesting points brought up about interchange, recession, credit, merchants, etc. and I thought this interview would be a good read for any of my readers. Here is the interview – let me know what you think…?
Why do Different Payment Processors Have Different Rate Structures?
Many different processors are out there who offer merchant services. Weather the services are provided through a Member Bank or ISO, every application is subject to a very similar adjudication from Visa and Mastercard. Different processors do however, have different rate structures. There are a few reasons as to why these differences exist. Let’s look [...]
Small Business Owners Lobby to Cut Credit Card Processing Fees
This is an article written in New York Times Small Business section and address US merchant account concerns address ever increasing credit card processing fees, but I think it is an article that speaks also to Canadian small business owners. The article is called: Small-Business Owners Lobby to Cut Credit Card Fees and it is [...]
Canadian Merchant Accounts – Stop Sticking It To Us
The word on the street is that more and more Merchants are finding the cost of using credit card processing services to be getting too expensive. This year credit card companies have had two adjustments, one in April by Visa and one recently in Oct 1st, 2008 by MasterCard. These adjustments have created (for most [...]
