Tag Archives: E-Commerce

Tiered Pricing vs. Interchange Plus

Leave a reply

Today The Official Merchant Services Blog is going to delve into the murky world of hidden fees and tiered pricing plans. This is the first in a two-part series and it focuses on Tiered Pricing. Host Merchant Services offers an Interchange Plus pricing plan. The company offers this plan because of its transparency and the savings it can provide when compared to the far more popular tiered pricing plans. To get a better grasp of why Interchange Plus works so good for Host Merchant Services, it helps to understand what is happening with a tiered pricing plan and how that kind of plan works.

Hidden Fees From Tiered Pricing Plans Unfair to Merchants

Tiered credit card pricing can be unfair to small business owners. Many credit card payment processors calculate merchant costs using a tiered pricing structure. These tiered pricing levels increase the costs for merchants by suggesting they are paying one rate, but hiding other fees into the statements and in the end the merchant is paying a higher percentage. The answer to this problem is Interchange plus pricing.

Host Merchant Services uses Interchange Plus. And this pricing structure is the most transparent and easiest to read system in terms of the statement and the way fees are charged. The merchant sees everything they are being charged for in their statement. Nothing is hidden, and there are no shenanigans employed in getting merchants to think they are saving with a low rate that ends up being made up for in a series of other fees snuck into each statement.

Three tier pricing is currently one of the most popular pricing structures used in the payment processing industry. Here’s a table that defines the three tiers:

It’s all About The Surcharges

Tiered pricing plans start with the qualified rate. This is the standard fee a merchant is charged when they accept and process a credit card or debit card transaction. This is also the lowest rate the merchant can incur. Transactions that don’t qualify for the standard set forth at that rate get hit with various surcharges. And its these surcharges where the processor starts to make a lot of profit. And its these surcharges which are usually the hidden fees that don’t show up on a merchant’s statement.

There are over 500 different interchange categories between the major credit card companies and each category has its own charge that is comprised of a percentage and often a per transaction fee. The three tier pricing structure merges all of these charges into three buckets. And a Merchant Services Provider has its own discretion, to an extent, as to which bucket or tier they place these categories.

These underlying interchange categories are not disclosed on a tiered pricing plan so there’s no way of knowing into which bucket each category is being charged. This is where hidden fees crop up.

 

Merchants are Slacking on Security

Leave a reply

According to a study by Verizon, 79% of organizations were not fully compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) in their initial audit in 2010. That’s about the same level as the previous year, the first year the study was done. This is distressing news since PCI Compliance is extremely important for merchants and non-compliance carries heavy penalties.

Host Merchant Services offers its customers and potential customers a PCI Compliance Initiative, which includes a free scan, analysis and report.

HMS works with its customers to ensure they are PCI Compliant, offering resources, information and assistance every step of the way.

 

Secure transactions are important for merchants and a key element of the customer service HMS provides. Which is what makes the following statistics from the Verizon study somewhat disconcerting, considering how easy PCI Compliance is to maintain through Host Merchant Services:

This article by Information Week delves into the statistics from the Verizon report, and offers five reasons why merchants are letting their PCI Compliance slip each year.

“1. Businesses See PCI As A Burden. PCI isn’t exactly a new standard, or complying with it a new requirement. Why aren’t more businesses taking it to heart? “Well, it’s hard to say, but one common reason is that they have not internalized the fact that PCI DSS is to help them (as well as card brands and banks) with security. It is not to punish them for failing an audit. PCI is seen by many as an ‘externality,’ not something they ‘adopted for themselves,'” said Gartner analyst Anton Chuvakin in an interview.”

Host Merchant Services understands that PCI Compliance, especially being an annual requirement, can be an added burden on its customers. That’s why HMS created its PCI Compliance Initiative. The company seeks to shoulder that burden for its customers, making PCI Compliance as hassle-free as possible.

“2. Merchants Don’t Maintain Continuous Compliance. Many businesses don’t pursue PCI as a way to improve security, but rather treat it as a compliance obligation. “PCI is still often seen as a ‘one time per year’ thing, and such an attitude is pretty harmful–but mostly to the merchants themselves, by the way. Organizations keep ‘doing it over,’ not maintaining it,” said Chuvakin.”

Host Merchant Services, due to CEO Lou Honick‘s prior experience with the web  hosting industry, has a keen insight into how essential the security that PCI Compliance is attempting to standardize can be for its merchants. Which is another key reason why HMS is so involved in seeing that its merchants maintain their PCI Compliance.

“3. Poor Awareness Means Lackluster Effort. Compliance officers–or perhaps senior managers–are failing to educate themselves about PCI, and according to Verizon’s research, the greater awareness of PCI found in a business, the greater the actual compliance. “The more aware your organization is of the standard, the more prepared you are for the type of approach you take,” said Verizon’s Mack.”

Host Merchant Services also understands the trouble it can be keeping informed on PCI details and information. Which is why the company’s PCI Compliance Initiative includes easily available online resources to answer as many questions about PCI as possible, an online guide for the most common merchant classification to become PCI Compliant, as well as offering all of this information directly to the merchants face-to-face or on the phone. The goals of the program are to keep the merchant informed, make PCI Compliance easy to understand and easier to maintain.

“4. Compliance Checklists Trump Security Posture. To help businesses better comply with PCI, the council in 2009 released the PCI DSS Prioritized Approach to help businesses know which aspects of PCI to address first to most mitigate the risks to cardholder data. But Verizon saw a 10% drop in use of the prioritized approach, and little use of it overall. “

This issue is handled by HMS’ PCI Initiative as well. The company is there working directly with merchants step-by-step on PCI Compliance. So the checklists are handled, but there is also the HMS agent’s expertise on hand with each item on the checklist. So the merchant’s overall security posture is still taken into account. PCI Compliance is an important part of a merchant’s security and Host Merchant Services keeps that in mind through each part of the compliance process.

“5. Businesses Not Prepping For PCI 2.0? Businesses that skimp on continuous compliance may soon find themselves called to account as they move to PCI DSS 2.0, with which businesses could have begun demonstrating compliance as of October 2010.”

Host Merchant Services stays up to date on PCI Compliance standards and takes all of the burden onto the company’s shoulders. HMS keeps its merchants well informed about changes, but also does all of the hard work to explain the details and make sure its customers are continuously compliant.

If you take some time to review the PCI Compliance information we have on our site you’ll see that the process is straightforward and it is easy for us to maintain compliance for our customers. This is a path we walk down with our customers. Security is essential in payment processing. And we are here to ensure our merchants are secure and do not backslide into a position where they could get heavy penalties for non-compliance.

The statistics from the Verizon study are somewhat dismaying to read. But our analysis of them seems to indicate that it’s simply an example of where HMS’ focus on customer service steps things up. PCI Compliance can be easy to slack on when the onus is completely on the merchant’s shoulders. And a lot of Merchant Services Providers haven’t taken HMS’ unique approach so the burden remains on the merchant. At Host Merchant Services we take the burden, and help keep you informed, up to date and secure. PCI Compliance is too important to let slide.

Steve Jobs passes away 2011

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Leave a reply

Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and former CEO of the company, passed away Wednesday October 5, 2011. Apple’s website posted this as a remembrance:

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

The impact Jobs had on the payment processing industry is still being defined even now after his passing. Mobile Payments are a booming sector in payment processing, and technology is still being developed and tweaked and polished to harness the revenue potential that some predict will blossom by billions of dollars in the next four to five years.

And the iPhone that Jobs helped Apple launch is a key element in mobile payments. Host Merchant Services‘ own mobile payment solution, HMSPay uses an iPhone application to function. The iPhone, the iPad, the iPod are three of Jobs’ greatest legacies and innovations. These items that Jobs brought forth into the world are still only at the beginning of their use in terms of payment processing and its evolution.

You can find out more about Steve Jobs and his life from these links:

Google plus

What Does Google+ Mean For Small Businesses? [2023 Update]

Leave a reply

With the launch of Google+ this year, most of the media buzz about the topic has been the confrontational aspects of Google+ vs. Facebook. But now that Google+ has started to settle in, there’s deeper issues at play for it and the impact it can have on e-commerce. The Official Merchant Services Blog takes a look at where things stand with Google+ and what impact it can have with small businesses.

Since its start in 1998, Google has been building an entire array of web tools. E-mail, calendars, the vaunted Google Docs, advertising, site analytics, mobile applications and third party apps for everything else, the “Google Universe” now offers a complete lifestyle hub for its users. The only thing it had been missing was social media … until now. Google+ is that last addition, and has the capacity to bring all of the rest of the tools Google offers together seamlessly into a rapidly growing social network.

What does Google+ mean for the small businesses?

Google Apps Marketplace and Google’s Chrome Web Store are extensive marketplaces for web apps that host everything from accounting to project management to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications to Enterprise Resource Planning applications. A full suite of management tools come together through Google and then Google+ Circles provide the interactive connection for co-workers using these apps.

Google+ is poised to become the conversation manager, overseeing all of the apps that are generating activity inside of a business. Google+ offers an expansive, easy to manage unifying force for business communications within Google’s universe. As a result, small businesses are migrating (over 3 million so far) away from expansive on premise software solutions to Google Apps for their IT infrastructure in a cloud computing environment. And this gives Google+ the opening it needs to target small businesses.

Single Platform or Best-of-Breed?

This Google-branded “universe” held together by Google+ also brings up a key issue for businesses regarding their tools: Do they go for a series of best-of-breed tools, the top of the line features available from a mix of companies and options, or do they go for a single source for all their business interactions?

With the former choice the business has the top-of-the-line tools and functionality available. But the usage can be fragmented between different pieces of software and programming. Purchasing managers, IT, and end-users are left juggling a medley of vendors and individual tools that on their own can be the best of what they do, but overall may not play well together. It could be something like Microsoft for IT, Oracle for backend infrastructure, Facebook for marketing and social media, LinkedIn for business to business connections. A series of integrations across a landscape of tools that ends up being complicated and expensive.

With choosing Google, and using Google+ to hold it all together, the business now has a single set of tools from the same source. This unifying force is very appealing to small business owners. As they look to replace desktop software and move toward a web-only environment, Google+ gives them that much more convenience on this path. Online tools offer an ease of use, accessibility and low cost that a series of different software packages can’t match. And even mixing together various web-based apps can be more cumbersome than the single Google toolbox can potentially offer. This extends beyond the document sharing of Google Docs and gives a viable web-based alternative for all that’s needed to keep a small business running day-to-day.

Unlike Facebook, which still focuses on the social aspect and presents itself as a place to hang out, Google+ is placing itself in a unique position to be the catalyst for a small business toolbox that manages all the different things a small business needs to thrive.

Now that the benefits of Google+ are thoroughly defined and out of the way, it’s time to focus on the one glaring negative. Businesses still can’t properly utilize the system yet. The only problem with Google+, and it’s a big one, is that businesses can’t register for the time being. Google says that won’t change until winter 2011.

What that means is you have to take advantage of Google+ currently in other ways. So the potential boon Google+ can bring as a unifying force for small businesses is still waiting for Goggle to finish integrating the features and let businesses in on it all. For now, Google+ remains an incomplete tool that still only works as a social tool like Facebook. That will change. And when it does, businesses will have an entire universe of functionality stitched together and ready made for them to take to the clouds and run things through just the web. Host Merchant Services will continue to monitor the development of Google+ and keep our readers up to date.

In the meantime, here’s a blog that gives some advice on how to use Google+ right now.

And here’s a blog from Forbes that cites 5 Things Small Businesses Should Know About Google+.h

Why the Durbin Amendment Got it Right [2023 Update]

Leave a reply

The people in Washington aren’t exactly popular these days, and mostly for good reason.  Unemployment is high, the so-called economic recovery is weak, and small businesses are hurting.  However, another round of stimulus is on its way, and this time it might just work.  Even better, this stimulus comes at the expense of banks that got us into this mess to begin with. To be fair, there is plenty of blame to spread around but that is a topic for another day.  The Durbin Amendment went into effect October 1st, and many businesses will see a significant reduction in their monthly debit card processing fees.  This isn’t just for pin-based transactions, but applies to all Visa and Mastercard logo signature debit cards, as well as card-not-present debit card transactions via Internet and phone order.  On average, fees will be reduced by over 1% per transaction, resulting in a windfall for small business.

There are a lot of arguments against the Durbin Amendement.  I’ll outline and debunk the major ones here:

The savings will not get passed along to the merchants.

True, your merchant services company is not required to pass the savings along to you.  If you are on tiered pricing instead of Interchange plus, you aren’t going to receive the benefits.  But this is also creating a huge opportunity for merchant services companies like us to introduce customers to the benefits of our pricing model and to save them a very significant amount of money.  In short, if you’re merchant services company isn’t passing the savings along to you, it’s time to find a new merchant services company.

Merchants will not pass the savings along to their consumers.  

Again, true, but not necessarily the point.  In a free market, any time you create margin, you create opportunity.  Businesses all over the country are getting a little relief in their margins.  Some will choose to use that margin to compete on price.  Some will pocket the profits.  Many will use that extra profit to reinvest and grow their businesses through hiring and infrastructure enhancements.  No matter how you slice it, this is money directly to small business and that is great for the economy.

Banks will charge fees to offset the lost revenue.  

Sure, this is happening at some high profile institutions like Bank of America.  But other banks are also using it as an opportunity to lure you away.  Banks are limited by competition in terms of how much of the fee they can pass along to you before you bolt to a competitor.  That is the free market working the way it should.  When you take monopolistic fees like Interchange that are unavoidable to merchants and move them to the front of the transaction, consumers and small businesses ultimately win.  You now have the ability to shop for the best deal, where transaction costs were previously hidden and passed along in other ways.

Overall, the Durbin Amendment should provide a multi-billion dollar boost to small businesses everywhere, and the government didn’t have to shell out taxpayer dollars to make it happen.  Sure, it may be somewhat arbitrary, and too much regulation is never a good thing, but the card associations that impose Interchange fees operate as a cartel with monopolistic powers, so the government has a valuable role to play in the process.  We should all celebrate the Durbin Amendment and the tremendous benefits to small business.  If you’re not setup to take advantage of the savings, what are you waiting for?  Apply now!

Durbin Amendment Is Here

Leave a reply

Today is the day. October 1, 2011 the changes brought on by the Durbin Amendment take effect. The Official Host Merchant Services Blog has been running its Countdown to Durbin series leading up to today. We end our series with one last gallop through the media coverage of the law.

Durbin Amendment Costs People Their Job

The most attention grabbing link we found on the day of Durbin taking effect was this article from Credit Newsline, stating the Durbin Amendment forced a Texas bank to close branches and lay people off. The article stated:

“The Laredo, Texas-based International Bancshares Corp. announced on Friday that it will shutter 55 grocery store branches and lay off approximately 500 people in response to the Durbin Amendment, which will cap what banks can charge merchants for debit card transactions.

“Government many times passes regulations that end up hurting the very people they were intended to help,” International Bancshares Corp. chairman and CEO Dennis Nixon said. “This appears to be one of those cases.

Nixon said that the $11.8 billion International Bancshares will close the grocery store branches so that it can continue offering free checking to its customers following the new interchange legislation, which takes effect on Oct. 1. The company said that it relied on revenue from debit card fees to cover the cost of free products and services for consumers and is shutting the branches to offset the loss of revenue.”

The last bit we’ll leave you with comes from Fox Business Network, and it’s a save the date tidbit on October 1:

“The significance of Oct. 1 is not limited to the world of plastic cards. Thomas Edison opened the first electric lamp factory on this date in 1880. Yellowstone and Yosemite National Park, in 1890, were established by the U.S. Congress. And on October 1, 1992, the Cartoon Network launched. In any case, you and your local store owners may not look at your debit card, or your credit card, in quite the same way again.”

Remember to read Host Merchant Services’ extensive analysis of the Durbin Amendment here. And we’ll be back to regular blog reporting on Monday but will most likely have more information related to the Durbin Amendment going forward as the banking industry is just getting started with its plans to react to this law and the changes it brings.

Durbin Amendment About To Be In Effect

Leave a reply

On the last day of September, Durbin Amendment Eve if you will, The Official Merchant Services Blog is about ready to end its Countdown to Durbin Series. Today we take a look at the big news that has the media buzzing.

Bank of America Reacts to Durbin

Bank of America, the largest bank in the country going by deposits, announced it is going to begin charging its customers a $5 monthly fee to use debit cards. The bank will begin charging the fee next year for the bank’s basic checking accounts. It will apply only to debit card purchases and not to ATM withdrawals, online bill payments or mobile phone transfers, the company said.

Consumer Backlash and Cut Up Cards

Bank of America announced this change, which will take effect for its customers in 2012, and were soundly slammed with negative feedback. Our first link comes from Fox Business Network, where Gerri Willis cut up her debit card on the air in reaction to the news from Bank of America. “Right here, right now, I’m going to show Bank of America what I think of their fees,” she said before using a pair of scissors on her card.

Durbin Slams Bank of America

Our next link comes from The Washington Post. It picks up the topic, mentioning what Willis did on the air. It then offers Bank of America’s defense of this new fee, stating that the bank is doing this to recoup losses that will come from the cap on debit card swipe fees that the Durbin Amendment will put into place tomorrow on October 1. Then the article quotes Senator Dick Durbin: “Bank of America is trying to find new ways to pad their profits by sticking it to its customers,” Durbin said in a statement Thursday. “It’s overt, unfair, and I hope their customers have the final say.”

Bank of America Already in Crisis

While this move was quite predictable, and falls into line with Host Merchant Services’ previously published analysis of how banks will react to the Durbin Amendment, the news is quite incendiary because of Bank of America’s current situation. Which is mentioned in the third article we highlight on Bank of America, by Fox News: “the Bank of America decision drew outrage for several reasons. The company is the largest U.S. bank by deposits. And it reaped $45 billion in federal bailout money — receiving the first chunk in 2008 and the rest in 2009 to cope with losses at Merrill Lynch. “

The article also mentions that Bank of America did pay back the government all of the bailout money.

Bank of America a Microcosm of Durbin’s Impact

A fourth article, from the Christian Science Monitor, sums up quite succinctly how this news is quite standard Durbin Amendment fallout: “So in other words, Bank of America is shifting a part of the fee obligation from merchants to customers.”

As we’ve seen in the ongoing Countdown to Durbin series, this is one of the most expected moves that banks are making. Shifting the burden of the fees away from merchants and putting it squarely on the shoulders of the consumers. This avoids the scope of the Durbin Amendment’s regulations and lets the banks continue to reap profits from the billion dollar payment processing industry.

Rounding out the coverage of Bank of America and its announced monthly debit fees we find:

The Chicago Tribune offers a quick glance at Bank of America’s plan here.

The Baltimore Sun blogs to its readers to avoid these types of fees by switching to ATM only.

And the final little tidbit we offer you today on the eve of Durbin enactment comes from The Street, reporting that Morgan Stanley cut 2012 earnings estimates for Bank of America and 11 other banks.

Host Merchant Services highlights Bank of America's downgrade by Morgan Stanley

This chart, while the story states is not entirely tied to Bank of America’s recent announcement or to the Durbin Amendment, does show that banks will be affected by the Durbin Amendment. They will have to make changes to deal with the losses they expect to take from a hard cap on fees that they were profiting from, and if Bank of America is any indicator, the burden of those changes will go from the merchants who used to get hit with the swipe fees to the consumer who will now have to pay more to support the use of debit cards.

Durbin Amendment Almost Here

Leave a reply

The Official Merchant Services Blog once again takes up the task of analyzing the media reports revolving around the Durbin Amendment and the changes it will bring to how banks do business with their customers because of its cap on debit card swipe fees. We continue to use Host Merchant Services‘ own analysis as the foundation of the comparisons we make regarding other media sources and their take on the legislation and its impact.

Durbin on Durbin

The first article comes from a Chicago-based radio station WLS 890 AM. It’s an interesting read because it quotes the legislation’s namesake, Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois. It’s one of the few articles that includes Durbin’s perspective on the legislation as we get closer to the October 1 date of when the law takes effect. The article begins with a brief explanation of what Durbin sought to do with the legislation:

“Sen. Dick Durbin told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the debit card fees retailers have to pay will go down Saturday thanks to the Durbin Amendment.”

It then offers a lively retort from J.P. Morgan Chase executive Jamie Dimon: “The big boss at J.P. Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, calls this ‘price fixing at its worst’ that will surely cause banks to raise fees on customers with deposit accounts. “

While many of the articles on this amendment have been dancing around the confrontation between consumers and banks over the Durbin Amendment this article dives right into the rhetoric, giving it a much more active tone for the reader and an insight into the debate that framed and spawned the legislation. It helps that the article ties this confrontational perspective into the legislation’s author and Durbin’s motivation for working on the amendment. Citing a letter that Durbin wrote to Dimon back in April, the article states: “Durbin said to Dimon, ‘Your industry is used to getting its way with many members of Congress and with your regulators. The American people deserve to know the real story about the interchange fee system and the ways that banks in general — and Chase in particular — have abused that system.’ “

But the basic conclusion is pretty much the same as the other articles focusing on the amendment and what changes it will bring on October 1. The conclusion is that banks will react by creating more fees for their customers and just recouping the losses from the swipe fee cap in other areas not covered by the legislation. Durbin is quoted in the article, calling that tactic “indefensible” but conceding it is the likely outcome of the amendment. The article sums it up: “So what the government giveth, the banks may take away.”

The Cost of Doing Business

The next article we look at is an Associated Press piece located on Bloomberg’s website. It’s a report that reveals how much money American Express spent in the second quarter of this year to lobby Congress and fight against the implementation of the Durbin Amendment.

“American Express Co. spent $610,000 in the second quarter to lobby the federal government on rules involving the fees charged to merchants for processing payments and other issues, according to a disclosure report.”

The article notes that the company spent the same amount of money in the previous quarter of 2011, but that they spent 3% more money in the second quarter of 2010 comparatively. The article also notes that Amex doesn’t offer debit card services, but does offer interchange services on credit card payments, suggesting that was the reason it spent money to lobby Congress on the topic. The money wasn’t solely spent on lobbying against the Durbin Amendment. And the article notes that: “Amex representatives also lobbied the federal government on legislation involving online tracking of consumer behavior and the protection of personal information, cyber security, financial regulatory reform, consumer financial protection and issues related to reloadable prepaid cards, patent reform, tax reform and reform of the U.S. Postal Service.”

So what we see in today’s Countdown to Durbin is a look at how heated the debate still is between the legislation’s namesake and the big banks that are targeted by the reform. The intensity of this debate was such that American Express even spent more than $600,000 in a single quarter to lobby against it in 2011.

Durbin Amendment Ready To Go [2023 Update]

Leave a reply

The Official Merchant Services Blog continues to keep its finger on the pulse of the Durbin Amendment media buzz. The legislation that marks regulation that caps debit card swipe fees begins to take effect on October 1, 2011. And there’s still a lot of scrambling from various media sources to try and predict how banks, merchants and consumers will be impacted by the cap on the billion dollar payment processing industry.

Host Merchant Services has been ahead of the curve in both its analysis of the legislation and its reaction to the legislation.

Today, The Official Merchant Services Blog takes a look at two different articles discussing the Durbin Amendment and the changes it brings.

Banks Plan to Recoup Durbin Losses With Other Fees

The first article comes from mainstreet.com. It’s a pretty standard discussion of the most predicted reaction: Banks will react to the losses that the Durbin Amendment cap places on their swipe fee revenue from previous years by creating new service fees for debit card use. So instead of charging per swipe, the banks move the charge directly to the cardholder as a service fee for having debit card services available to them.

The article cites a robust number of debit card users in the U.S.:

“Americans sure love their debit cards. Between Visa  and MasterCard there are more than 520 million debit cards in use nationwide today. “

That frames the basis of why banks are working to come up with a reaction to the Durbin Amendment. With that many debit card users in the country, there are billions of dollars in profit being cut into with the swipe cap. As the article explains, a quarterly survey of debit card use by financial consumers produced by Manhattan-based Auriemma Consulting Group finds: “banks remain stung by changes in debit card fees (called interchange fees) that reduced the amount of fees banks could charge customers for debit card transactions. The changes, which were triggered by the Durbin Amendment in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, basically cut debit card transaction fees in half, the ACG reports.”

The article goes on to explain how many banks are wary over the consumer backlash that could result from charging monthly fees for debit card use and scaling back or restricting reward points programs. The article quotes  Ed Lawrence, director of the debit marketing roundtable at the ACG as saying: “The first-movers to institute debit/checking fees in a given market will experience the most scrutiny and possible attrition, along with negative press; as others follow, customers will have fewer places to move to.”

The conclusion drawn from the article is that Durbin puts the banks in a position where they have to react with changes in how they offer debit card services. And the most likely choices are consumer fees for debit card usage and/or reward points programs being restricted or removed. The banks know these choices will be unpopular with consumers but there’s likely to be a domino effect where once a few banks do it, many more will follow suit, leaving consumers with less and less alternatives.

Some Tips On Dealing With Durbin

The second article comes from USA Today’s Money section. Sandra Block offers some insight into Durbin that mirrors much of the insight every other article about Durbin that The Official Merchant Services Blog has reviewed. But Block offers consumers advice on how to deal with the changes that Durbin is going to bring to their wallets: “The good news: There are numerous ways to avoid these fees. Some tips …”

Block offers four basic tips for consumers to do in response to their bank’s reaction to the Durbin Amendment.

  • Tip 1: Forget about interest checking accounts. Block notes that the increased cost of maintaining this type of account ($5,587 for the interest account vs. $585 for the non-interest account) isn’t worth the 0.08% interest the account offers.
  • Tip 2: Set up direct deposit. Block notes that many banks offer to waive checking account fees for customers who set up direct deposit.
  • Tip 3: Consider switching to a small bank or credit union. Block notes that banks and credit unions with assets lower than $10 million are exempt from the Durbin Amendment changes.
  • Tip 4: Watch out for Debit Card fees. Block’s final tip is for consumers to pay close attention to their debit card fees. Many banks may not change immediately and be slower to react to Durbin so consumers should be aware of the details of their statements going forward.

The Official Merchant Services Blog keeps finding the same theme that the media is bringing up about the Durbin Amendment. Banks do not want to lose the billions of dollars that their transaction fees were bringing them prior to the swipe fee cap. So they are going to find ways to move things around to keep the revenues coming in. And many of the proposed changes are ideas that will end up being shouldered by the consumers. The demographic that this finance reform legislation was initially supposed to assist.

E-Commerce uses Mobile Payments and Near Field Communications as new Merchant Services Solutions

Payment Processing Changes and How They Effect Small Businesses

Leave a reply

It used to be one of the big decisions a small business had to make was whether or not to accept credit cards. But with E-commerce booming and consumers continually reaching for plastic instead of paper for their transactions, that decision has pretty much been made for small businesses. They have to accept some form of card payment as fewer people carry cash. However, the technology for payment processing is advancing at a high rate right now. And many studies predict mobile payments are on the verge of transforming the way people pay for things even more than before. The future of payment processing is ripe for change.

The Current Payment Processing Landscape At A Glance

Merchant Services, by its very nature, is an industry that for the most part seeks to work unnoticed by the consumer. The companies performing this service, which can be explained here in this Host Merchant Services infographic, tend to make their money off of percentages of a penny. Transaction by transaction those percentages grow into pennies, and as volume increases even further those pennies increase into dollars.

A lot of small business owners have horror stories about their payment processors because a really common practice that companies in the industry started to do to each other to compete better, was to boost the expenses from those transactions, and those percentages of pennies, with hidden fees and contractual obligations.

It got so bad that federal legislation, in the form of the Durbin Amendment, was passed as a way to combat debit card swipe fees. Host Merchant Services is already tracking the effects of those changes in a series right here on the Official Merchant Services Blog.

Changing the Game

But that’s not the only way the game is changing. Some companies, like Host Merchant Services, see the opportunity being created by the old standard. So HMS shines light on hidden fees, cuts away the fat from these agreements and HMS even goes so far as to not hold its merchants to contracts or termination fees.  Many of the features you find at Host Merchant Services are designed specifically to appeal to small business owners. A service oriented Merchant Services solution that lets the merchant know exactly what they are paying on their statement.

Technology Adds its Own Wrinkle

Beyond just what Host Merchant Services is doing to change the model for Merchant Services Providers, the industry is being shaped by advances in technology, specifically the potential for profits from mobile payments. Small Business Owners are starting to find the convenience of being able to process a payment anywhere can give them more flexibility to reach their customers. And so the companies developing the technology for these mobile payments are racing to reach the market with their ideas and advances.

Square Up  –  In 2009 the Co-Founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, introduced a breakthrough device that allows both individuals and businesses to swipe and process credit cards directly on their iPhone or Android phone. While Square was not the first company to do this, what set them apart was their fee structure and their lack of a contract. Square has no contract, does not have any monthly fees and only charges when a card is swiped or keyed in. They currently charge 2.75% of the transaction for each swiped card. This is their big selling point because Square lets small businesses that did not have the resources prior to begin accepting credit cards. This is appealing to small businesses with low or inconsistent volume that would normally be burdened by the heavy costs associated with setting up a merchant account.

Google Wallet  – On the other side of the payment world there is Google, who partnered with Citibank to create a new product called Google Wallet. This new mobile payment technology allows consumers to attach a credit card number to an embedded near-field communications (NFC) chip in their Android phone. This in turn gives that person the ability to make payments by swiping their mobile phone next to a chip reader.

NFC technology has been around for about a decade, and is still being tested in target market areas. Google Wallet will be tested first in New York City and Google hopes to roll it out for the rest of the country in 2012. Host Merchant Services noted this previously in an article.

HMSPay  – Host Merchant Services offers its own mobile payment solution, HMSPay. This is similar to Square in that it’s a device that attaches to an iPhone. And its big selling point is that it adheres to HMS’ standards of service and savings. Merchants who use it are able to get ultra-competitive rates that let small businesses take credit cards without being overwhelmed by hidden fees and other excesses found in the Merchant Services industry.