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Industry Terms: EMV Cards

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This is the latest installment in The Official Merchant Services Blog’s Knowledge Base effort.  We want to make the payment processing industry’s terms and buzzwords clear.  We want to remove any and all confusion merchants might have about how the industry works.  The Host Merchant Services promise, we deliver personal service and clarity.  So we’re going to take some time to explain how everything works.  This ongoing series is where we define industry related terms and slowly build up a knowledge base and as we get more and more of these completed, we’ll collect them in the resource archive for quick and easy access.  Today’s term is EMV,  or chip-based cards.

Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV)

EMV cards, also known as smart cards, were developed and backed by four of the major card brands.  First implemented in Europe, the cards rely on an imbedded microchip to send and receive payment data with a merchant’s EMV-enabled terminal or POS system.

The chips, only about 3 by 5 mm in size, transmit unique numbers to the payment processors each time the cards are used.  This increases the security since the customers’ name and signature are not used or stored.  Making the chip-based cards unaffected by breaches.

These cards have been used in Europe for more than a decade and have appeared in Canada as recently as two years ago.  So what’s holding the United States up?  That’s right, you guessed it, the price tag.  Javelin Strategy & Research estimates the cost of deployment for EMV in the U.S. at about $8.6 billion.  The major card brands, however, have decided to make the push from the current magnetic strip standard, to the more secure form, EMV.

AmEx joins the club

In late June, American Express announced that it would be joining Visa and MasterCard, in requiring the chip-based cards.  Visa began an aggressive push last year for EMV cards; the company claimed more than a million of the cards were in circulation at the end of 2011.  AmEx, however, will require they be implemented in April 2013, instead of the 2015 mandate set by Visa and MasterCard.

Fraud Free

You may find yourself asking, at such a large implementation cost, are EMV cards really worth it? The answer is yes!  The savings comes in the form of decreased fraud.  The chip-embedded cards are much harder to duplicate than their magnetic strip enabled counterparts.  Criminals can modify or replace the information on mag-stripe cards easily.  Whereas the signals EMV cards give off, cannot be duplicated.

Fraud in the United States amounted to more than $3.56 billion in 2010.  Globally, the U.S. contributed to about 27% of payment-card purchases, yet accounted for 47% of global payment-card fraud.

In summary, EMV cards are coming to the U.S. whether merchants want to accept them or not.  The cost to implement them may cause a bit of a sticker shock, but the long-term benefits of virtually eliminating card fraud heavily outweigh it.  The decreased fraudulent charges will eventually translate into more savings for you, the merchant.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

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Today The Official Merchant Services Blog is here to update our readers on the latest development in the  lawsuit against Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. —  the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history. We broke the story last week when we revealed that the card companies agreed to pay more than $6 billion to settle lawsuits from retailers claiming that the card issuers engaged in anti-competitive practices.

The July 13 settlement still needs to be OK’d by a judge, and today we learned that the decision may be getting held up by plaintiffs who do not want the settlement and the money it brings.

The Opposition and Their Position

The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), a class plaintiff in the lawsuit, rejected the settlement offer according to their own website. Because the proposed settlement does not introduce competition and transparency into the broken credit card swipe fee market, the NACS Board of Directors unanimously rejected the proposed settlement agreement.

The settlement is the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history, but NACS was not impressed because it only amounts to less than two months’ worth of swipe fees, based on the estimated $50 billion in swipe fees collected by the credit card companies on an annual basis. Worse, NACS feels that with the settlement there are no fundamental market changes that would constrain Visa and MasterCard from continuing to raise rates.

Wal-Mart Joins Opposition

The NACS opposition was announced almost immediately after the news of the settlement proposal was revealed. It’s taken a little bit of time, but others have started to join the opposition. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, joined the growing chorus of merchants opposed to the proposed settlement. Wal-Mart said the $7.25 billion settlement would not change a “broken” system of what credit card companies charge retailers for processing credit and debit card payments, known as “swipe fees.”

For the Record

NACS and Wal-Mart share the same criticism of the settlement.

“Not only does the proposed settlement fail to introduce competition and transparency into a clearly broken market, it actually provides Visa and MasterCard with the tools to continue to shield swipe fees from market forces,” said NACS Chairman Tom Robinson, who is also president of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Robinson Oil Corp.

Mirroring the NACS criticism, Wal-Mart said in a statement released by the company, “the proposed settlement would not structurally change the broken market or prohibit credit card networks from continually increasing hidden swipe fees, which already cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year.”

Robinson also said, “this proposed settlement allows the card companies to continue to dictate the prices banks charge and the rules that constrain the market including for emerging payment methods, particularly mobile payments. Consumers and merchants ultimately will pay more as a result of this agreement — without any relief in sight.”

Wal-Mart again mirrored the NACS statements and went further when it said the settlement would not “prohibit credit card networks from continually increasing hidden swipe fees, which already cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year,” and would “also constrain emerging payments innovation.” These innovations the opposition keeps referring to most likely include mobile wallets that allow consumers to pay using their smartphones.

Stay on Target

Joining Wal-Mart and NACS as vocal opponents of the settlement was Wal-Mart competitor Target. In a July 20 statement, Target used the now familiar language that the united opposition is using when it said in a statement that: “The proposed settlement would perpetuate a broken system, restrict retailers from any future legal action and offer no long-term relief for retailers or consumers.”

The NACS, Wal-Mart and Target were also joined by SIGMA, an association representing independent motor fuel marketers and chain retailers, in opposing this settlement. And then the National Grocers Association jumped on the anti-settlement bandwagon on July 27. “NGA joined the lawsuit on behalf of its independent retail grocer members over seven years ago to bring about real reform of the anticompetitive credit card swipe fee system,” said NGA president and CEO Peter Larkin in a statement. “This proposed settlement agreement fails in this regard by allowing Visa and MasterCard to continue their dominant anticompetitive practices.”

The Final Word

So as opposition mounts, it may be all for naught. The final decision still rests with a judge. It will be up to U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson to approve or reject the settlement, a process that will play out in Brooklyn federal court over the next few months.

Keepin’ it Mobile

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Today The Official Merchant Services Blog brings an update on Mobile Payment Technology.

The Mobile Payments Technology sector has been the topic of overt optimism for quite some time now. We’ve reported multiple times that industry analysts have predicted large gains in Mobile Payments profits over the short- and long-term future. Our article from 2011 showcased three different research groups and their take on the successful future they felt was in store for Mobile Payments.

More pieces of that predictive puzzle have been falling into place. According to a mobile payments survey conducted by IDC Financial Insights, mobile payments use in the United States has doubled. The May 2012 study looked closely at emerging pay method technologies and discovered that 33 percent of respondents had used their devices for mobile payments at least once.

IDC’s practice director, Aaron McPherson, told QRCode Press that “Based on our results, we expect to see continued growth in open-loop prepaid cards and mobile payments next year, and believe that the improvements being offered in electronic-bill delivery will break electronic-bill presentment and payment out of its doldrums as well.”

The Next Big Affirmation for Mobile Payments

Visa is convinced new payment tech, including mobile payments, are definitely the trend of the future — so much so that the card association giant is poised to showcase the power of the future in the spotlight of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. One of the new technologies Visa is thrusting into the public eye at the Olympics is EMV Chip Cards — something we highlighted back in February. Visa is heavily invested in Smart Card technology so it’s no surprise the company is using its Olympic Games partnership to point some attention at its EMV efforts. But right alongside that EMV push, Visa is also Mobile Payment Technology as a safe and convenient payment option for consumers throughout the London games.

Jim McCarthy, Head of Products at Visa Inc., said “This summer we will be demonstrating the future of payments in London – a future where most consumers will rely on mobile devices, tablets and PCs to manage their daily financial lives.” Visa’s Olympics marketing push for the future of Mobile includes:

  • Visa Mobile Payments and Services: A limited edition of the Samsung GALAXY S III, Samsung’s Olympic Games Phone during the London 2012 Games, will be provided to Visa sponsored athletes and trialists. The device will feature an Olympic-branded version of Visa’s mobile payment application, Visa payWave. To make purchases, consumers simply select the Visa icon on the Samsung device and hold the phone to a contactless payment terminal to pay.
  • Visa Mobile Prepaid: During the London 2012 Games, Visa Inc. will also showcase its newest product – Visa Mobile Prepaid – the first mobile-based Visa product providing consumers in developing countries a payment account that offers Visa’s high standards of security, reliability and global interoperability. By accessing their Visa Mobile Prepaid account on their mobile phone, consumers can send and receive international remittances, pay bills, top-up wireless minutes, and access Visa ATMs.

Setting New Standards

Looking at last year and then at this year’s statistics, Mobile Payments are doing their best to meet the bold predictions analysts have lined up for the future. The sector is growing rapidly and consumers in both the U.S. and around the world are embracing the convenience that the technology brings to their shopping habits. Juniper Research, a company that specializes in the identification and appraisal of high growth opportunities in various mobile telecommunications and applications sectors, put out a publication on July 5, 2011, titled “Mobile Payment Strategies.” Juniper predicted worldwide mobile spending would jump from $240 billion in 2011 to $670 billion in 2015.

Well Juniper is back with a new forecast that focuses on Near Field Communication (NFC) and this study predicts that in just five years the NFC Mobile Payments market will will exponentially increase and eventually exceed $180 billion — a whopping seven times what it is today. The study forecasts that one in four people from Western Europe and the United States will use NFC as a payment mechanism by 2017.

Juniper cites last year as a turning point for NFC payments and suggests that major consolidation of the technology is the impetus for the predicted growth in the market as consistent standards and protocols will help fuel rapid growth and assuage the security concerns of consumers. Juniper says that in 2011 major technology infrastructure standards were finalized within the NFC Mobile Payments market so that many mobile network operators committed to the market and NFC payment pilots from both mobile operators and financial institutions transitioned to commercial service. And the research firm pointed to NFC-enabled smartphone models being announced by almost all handset manufacturers and Google as a key factor for igniting interest in the mobile payment usage in the U.S.

“This is a critical time for the NFC retail payments market,” said report co-author Dr. Windsor Holden. “Despite the significant progress being made today, the full potential of the market can only be fulfilled if all ecosystem players are equally committed and mobile wallet consortia remain in place.”

The Big Cash Comeback?

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Today, The Official Merchant Services Blog is going to tackle a big picture topic in the world of credit card processing. Two weeks ago there was a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. Lawyers involved in the case claim it is the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history. The card companies agreed to pay more than $6 billion to settle lawsuits from retailers claiming that the card issuers engaged in anti-competitive practices.

The July 13 settlement proposal — which still needs the OK by a judge — has stipulations that drop requirements that retailers charge the same price for cash and credit purchases. This opens the way for millions of businesses to add checkout fees when customers pay with plastic. In short, the settlement lets retailers push the cost of swipe fees off of them and onto the consumer directly.

A Paradigm Shift

This decision has really started to hit home for me personally. Just last week I was in the emergency room at Christiana Hospital waiting for a family member to be admitted. I got there around 5 a.m. and was in a rush so didn’t really bring much of anything with me. Hours later, I was hungry and in need of a snack. And I didn’t have any cash on me. But the vending machines at this hospital are state of the art. Which means they have fully equipped credit card swipers, allowing you to purchase snacks from them without pocket change or single dollar bills. That realization hit home with me as I noted both the power of credit card processing to be present in all aspects of my own life, and just exactly how much closer we’ve really gotten to being a cashless society. One of the last holdovers from the previous generation’s use of coins — vending machines — were now accepting credit cards. It was convenient and really helped me out in a time where I was far too worried about everything but having cash on me.

Cash Still Rules

But then came this settlement, and a quick reminder of the Wu-Tang Clan credo: Cash Rules Everything Around Me (C.R.E.A.M.). This decision will do two things:

  1. It will allow merchants the power to offset their processing fees in a very direct fashion that gives them control and power.
  2. It will give the consumers themselves the incentive to start using cash again.

 

That first bullet point is good for the credit card processing industry as it allows merchants to feel more in control of their business and lets credit card processors offer more attractive savings directly to potential merchant accounts. But that gets offset by the second bullet point, as the consumer is then the direct decision maker on the purchase and has the power to affect the entire credit card processing industry by not using the plastic at all.

So Something’s Gotta Give, Right?

This boils down to an issue of convenience for the consumer. Plastic has always been the more convenient option. It’s easier to carry around than cash. And with a huge push still being made by Mobile Payment Processing Technology to make it even easier than plastic, cash still seems like it can be on the way out as we still careen quickly toward a cashless society.

But when faced with a choice between using cash and saving money, or using plastic and taking the hit on added surcharges directly, there will be a lot of consumers who will gladly switch back to cash. It won’t be that hard an adjustment to ease back into one’s daily life for shopping habits.

But, E-Commerce

The thing is, though, there’s still a really big chance these surcharges are going to hit consumers hard as too much advancement has been made in the technological infrastructure of a cashless society — namely the rise of e-commerce. Consumers today have taken to shopping online, and all of those sales utilize a credit card. A Rasmussen Reports poll in April 2012 showed that 43% of Americans said they have gone through a full week without paying for anything in cash or coins. And The Official Merchant Services Blog has reported avidly on how pervasive and commonplace online shopping has become for the typical U.S. Consumer. A move back to cash may simply not be all that effective now that people are used to the convenience and control that online shopping — and mobile shopping — provides.

Don’t Forget Durbin

This decision is the second major event concerning limitations placed on swipe fees in credit card processing. Last year the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act took effect. This amendment placed a hard cap on debit card swipe fees. And it’s affect is still rippling through the payment processing industry as big banks, the credit card associations, and processors all try to figure out ways to recoup the billions of dollars in projected losses that stem from having the swipe fee capped at 24 cents or so.

The one thing we can learn from the Durbin Amendment, however, is that the use of convenient swiping that debit cards provide has not been ground to a halt by Durbin, and e-commerce is still booming. It seems unlikely that this settlement concerning credit card swipe fees will curb the growth of e-commerce to the point where we take a huge step back into a cash-filled society.

 

FANF Reminder [2023 Update]

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Today The Official Merchant Services Blog wants to review the details of VISA’s new Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF). On April 1, 2012, Visa began charging this new fee. But it has taken about this long for it to catch up to merchants and their statements. The process sort of knocked its way down like dominoes falling — The fees went in effect in April, but were based on May’s activity, so didn’t show up until June’s statements, that many merchants are now noticing here in July.

These fees are new, and start to show up on statements where they hadn’t appeared before and they have the appearance of being hidden fees. This development goes against the Host Merchant Services policy of no hidden fees. Which is why we’ve attacked this story so vigorously in our blog, trying to keep our readership up to date on these new card association fees affecting the credit card processing industry.

The HMS Guarantee

Host Merchant Services wants to assure its customers that it sticks by its guarantee. HMS will never increase their fees for their customers. HMS continues to offer the guaranteed lowest rate. And that rate is frozen. Unfortunately, Card Association Fees are new, and are not part of any current pricing model. They are also mandated and initiated by the credit card companies themselves — Visa, MasterCard and Discover. All processors everywhere will be adding them to their pricing structure. So your statement will start showing new fees moving forward. But we here at Host Merchant Services will help explain what they are, where they come from and why they’re just now appearing on your statement. So please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about your statement.

Now About Those Fees

FANF is the most high profile of the new fees. But it’s name is a bit misapplied, as the fee itself is not “fixed” in any sense of the word.  The FANF is a monthly fee that will affect all merchants to a varying degree. For card present businesses like retailers, the amount of the Fixed Acquirer Network Fee will be based on the number of locations a business has. For card not present businesses like e-commerce operations, the FANF will be based on gross Visa processing volume. So the “Fixed” fee’s actual amount varies based on multiple factors. Those variables are:

  • Merchant Category Code (MCC)


    The merchant category code used to classify a business plays a role in the amount of the FANF charged each month. However, the impact of the MCC is very minimal, amounting to a difference of $0.90 – $1.10 for most businesses (less than fifty locations).

  • Acceptance Method


    The main factor in determining the amount of the FANF is whether a business processes the majority of its transactions in a card present or card not present environment.

  • Card Present Businesses

     (Excluding Fast Food Restaurants / MCC 5814)
    The amount of the Fixed Acquirer Network Fee for card present businesses will be based number of locations. Businesses with one location will be charged $2 – $2.90 a month, up to $85 a month for businesses with 4,000 or more locations.

  • Card-Not-Present Businesses

     (As well as Fast Food Restaurants / MCC 5814)
    For card-not-present businesses, the amount of the FANF will be based on gross Visa processing volume. Card-not-present businesses will see a greater impact from the FANF than card-present businesses due to the fee being determined by volume.

For example: card-not-present business processing between $8,000 and $39,999 will be hit with a Fixed Acquirer Network Fee of $15 a month opposed to just $2 for a card present business with similar volume and one location.

Other Fees

Besides FANF, Visa also is implementing a Transaction Integrity Fee and making revisions to its Network Acquirer Processing Fee. Visa’s Transaction Integrity Fee is a new $0.10 fee that will apply to U.S. domestic regulated and non-regulated purchase transactions made with a Visa Debit card or Visa Prepaid card that fail or do not request Custom Payment Service (CPS) qualification. On the other hand, the Network Acquirer Processing Fee on Visa-branded signature debit will be reduced — going from $0.0195 per authorization to $0.0155 per authorization. The fee for credit card authorization will remain $0.0195 per authorization.

Global Reveals More About Data Breach [2023 Update]

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Today The Official Merchant Services Blog is updating its coverage of the Global Payments Data Breach. The big bomb Global just dropped is that apparently there was a second data breach.

The story, initially broken by Ellen Messmer at Network World stated that Global Payments itself revealed this latest news.

Data Breach II: Credit Card Boogaloo

From the Global Payments Website:  “The Company’s ongoing investigation recently revealed potential unauthorized access to servers containing personal information collected from a subset of merchant applicants.  It is unclear whether the intruders looked at or took any personal information from the Company’s systems; however, the Company will notify potentially-affected individuals in the coming days with helpful information and make available credit monitoring and identity protection insurance at no cost.  The notifications are unrelated to cardholder data and pertain to individuals associated with a subset of the Company’s U.S. merchant applicants.”

So What Was Compromised?

This second breach compromised the personal information of a subset small merchants that applied to be clients of Global Payments — and the company stressed that this set of merchants was different than the ones exposed in the first breach. The exposed information includes the sort of personal information the Atlanta processor uses as part of its underwriting process. The company stressed that it does not have evidence that any fraudsters obtained or misused the merchant applicants’ information — but the servers that contained that information were possibly accessed by an unauthorized party. Last time we updated this story, we provided information from Brian Krebs about how information from the first data breach could have been used by fraudsters.

Something to keep in mind regarding Global’s claims that the second breach did not lead to fraud is that Global still maintains that the information that was compromised in its first breach was not involved in fraud — even after Krebs dug up examples of fraud happening to Global customers in his blog entry here.

Wait, What?

The author of the official updated statement released by Global — Jane Elliot from Investor Relations — added this caveat to the statement: “This announcement may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the ‘safe-harbor’ provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  Statements that are not historical facts, including management’s expectations regarding future events and developments, are forward-looking statements and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties.  Important factors that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated by such forward-looking statements include the following: further results of the continuing investigation of the unauthorized access of our processing system, including the discovery of additional card data or information implicated in the incident; the effect of our remediation efforts on operations; the impact of fines or penalties from the card networks and state authorities on our results of operations; and other risks detailed in the company’s SEC filings, including the most recently filed Form 10-Q or Form 10-K, as applicable.  The company undertakes no obligation to revise any of these statements to reflect future circumstances or the occurrence of unanticipated events.”

That reads like a very wordy hedge against the way this story has evolved to date. To put it another way, much of what Global has already stated, including clinging to the claim that the breach is contained and the number of compromised cards was just 1.5 million, has already been contradicted by information revealed by Visa and MasterCard.

Visa and MasterCard issued new alerts on May 15 suggesting the breach dated back to January 2011 — an exposure window significantly longer than what was originally reported by Global when news of the breach surfaced in late March. Visa’s alerts in March, which Brian Krebs used to break the story,  indicated the breach occurred sometime between Jan. 21, 2012, and Feb. 25, 2012. Global used those alerts to help underscore their assertion that the breach was small and contained. But on April 26, an updated advisory from Visa put the suspected intrusion date closer to June 7, 2011. Setting the length of exposure for compromised cards back six months. And then Visa and MasterCard released information that pushed the date back an entire year from the initial alert, to January 30, 2011. This vaults the figure of compromised cards to 7 million — much higher than the 1.5 million “or less” suggested by Global in their official statement.

All this contradiction over the length and severity of the breach had  been met with silence from Global Payments. They had offered no further comment other than to link to their website. But with this latest batch of statements, they’re now adding that very long caveat. And they apparently intend to clear matters up even further in June. The Company plans to provide additional information regarding the potential financial impact, the PCI compliance process and the status of the investigation not later than its July 26, 2012 year-end earnings call according to Paul R. Garcia, chairman and CEO of Global Payments.

The Official Merchant Services Blog will be following this story as close as ever now. It’s getting more complicated and convoluted. Hopefully that earnings call will clear the air a bit. But it still seems like the reporters digging into this, as well as Visa and MasterCard have a very different set of facts than the ones Global is sharing with people.

Industry Terms: Interchange

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Interchange

Interchange is a term used in the payment card industry to describe a fee paid between banks for the acceptance of card based transactions. Usually it is a fee that a merchant’s bank (the “acquiring bank”) pays a customer’s bank (the “issuing bank”).

In a credit card or debit card transaction, the card-issuing bank in a payment transaction deducts the interchange fee from the amount it pays the acquiring bank that handles a credit or debit card transaction for a merchant. The acquiring bank then pays the merchant the amount of the transaction minus both the interchange fee and an additional, usually smaller fee for the acquiring bank or ISO, which is often referred to as a discount rate, an add-on rate, or passthru.

For cash withdrawal transactions at ATMs, however, the fees are paid by the card-issuing bank to the acquiring bank (for the maintenance of the machine).

These fees are set by the credit card networks, and are the largest component of the various fees that most merchants pay for the privilege of accepting credit cards. Visa, Mastercard, and Discover are each known as card associations. And each card association has their own rate sheets known as Interchange Reimbursement Fees. These fees make up the majority of what you pay to your processor and they vary greatly depending on the card type accepted.

Download Visa’s Interchange Fees Here

Merchant Services Document Download Graphic

Download MasterCard’s Interchange Fees Here

Merchant Services Document Download Graphic

 

Interchange Plus Pricing

Interchange Plus pricing means that the acquirer charges you a variable MSC consisting of the cost price plus a fixed markup. Interchange Plus Pricing  is exclusively how we quote at Host Merchant Services. Interchange Plus, also known as Cost Plus, pricing gives the customer a fixed rate over published Interchange Fees. This pricing format is normally quoted as a discount rate (percentage fee) along with a per item or authorization fee. The great thing about Interchange Plus pricing is that you always know exactly what you are paying to your processor to services your account. Think of Interchange, and all the associated fees, as an unavoidable cost. No matter who you process with, you have to pay these fees. They may be labeled differently, or wrapped up in a confusing pricing tier, but one way or the other, you are paying Interchange fees. By understanding the markup you pay over Interchange, you know exactly what you pay to your processor and exactly what is going to the card associations. That allows you to make a decision on whether or not the markup seems reasonable for the service you get and choose your processing partner accordingly.

Here’s a small graphic explaining the basics of how Interchange Plus works:

Host Merchant Services infographic on Interchange Plus pricing

Visa Investigation Update

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On May 2 it was revealed by Visa CEO Joe Saunders that the credit card giant was being investigated by the Department of Justice for violation of antitrust laws. One of the key elements of the DoJ’s interest in Visa for antitrust violations is its new fee, the Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) which went into effect on April 1, 2012. Saunders stated that the investigation began on March 13, prior to the fees taking effect.

Saunders revealed that Visa was being investigated during Visa Inc.’s Fiscal Q2 2012 Earnings Conference Call, which prompted The Official Merchant Services Blog to take its readers through the strange roller coaster ride that was Visa’s beginning of May in THIS BLOG HERE.

The strength of Visa’s earnings in the last quarter was framed immediately by Saunders in the conference call: Credit. As Saunders says, “In the U.S., payment volumes increased 6% for all products. Our star performer for fiscal second quarter was credit. Building on that, we continue to invest in new and expanded long-term credit relationships with our largest U.S. clients to drive growth in our core business.”

The other side of that statement, however, is debit. Where MasterCard took great strides — notably adding the nation’s largest debit card institution Bank of America, which switched from Visa.

Visa claims it was hampered by the Durbin Amendment in terms of making earnings from debit in the last quarter.  As Saunders said in the conference call, “So far, the situation is playing out as we expected, and in line with our updated guidance for fiscal 2012 as well as our guidance for fiscal 2013. During the March quarter, U.S. aggregate debit payment volumes slowed to 2% growth and, as expected, has continued to decline in April. Interlink is bearing the brunt of the regulatory impact.”

Saunders then took a moment to emphasize the individual differences between Visa Debit — the well known Visa check cards that get swiped through terminals around the country — and Interlink, Visa’s PIN-debit product. Saunders noted that Visa’s swipe debit grew, but grew very slowly. And then went into detail about how Interlink was the company’s worst performer in the quarter, “We posted negative payment volume growth in each month of the March quarter. More recently, between the compliance deadline of April 1 and April 28, Interlink payment volume has experienced notable deterioration. Keep in mind, though, that in the March quarter, Interlink contributed less than 10% of U.S. debit revenue and about 2% of Visa Inc.’s overall revenue and was our lowest yielding product in the U.S. market. “

At this point in the call Saunders shifted into a very general discussion of Visa’s “strategies to compete” — essentially their new fees, including FANF, the Transaction Integrity Fee and a revised Network Acquirer Processing Fee. That led Saunders to discuss the Department of Justice investigation: “On March 13, prior to the April 1 implementation date, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division issued a civil investigative demand requesting additional information about PIN-authenticated Visa Debit and elements of our new debit strategies, including the fixed acquirer fee. In March, we met with the department twice and provided materials in response to the CID. We are confident our actions are appropriate and that our response to the DOJ supports that.”

More Commentary from Visa

During the question and answer period of the conference call, Saunders stepped up to defend Visa’s new fees. Saunders says that the fees are part of “the total structure we’ve put to deal with the Durbin regulation. We are not making money per se off of that fee. The combination of discounts and incentives that we have put together, I think, actually relate in a modest loss in the amount of $100 million a year. So we aren’t doing this with the intent of raising prices.”

Then another question comes up in the call asking about the outlook the company has for recovering from the losses in Debit due to Durbin. Saunders very vocally defends the company’s fees and strategies: “Let me just follow up on that and make perfectly clear one thing, and that is that we are never going to regain all of the market share that we had in the debit card business. Nothing that we say or none of our strategies suggest that that will happen or could happen. And nothing that we have done or thought about or said anticipates that it will happen. The environment has changed by regulation. We are operating in a different world, and we are going to live forever with less share than we once had.”

The TLDR Version from Visa

So essentially Visa’s CEO has revealed the company is being investigated by the DoJ for antitrust violations because its new fees could circumvent the point of the Durbin Amendment’s reform. But Saunders states the company is cooperating with the government probe, and stoutly defends the fees as not circumventing Durbin. Saunders says the fees don’t recoup the losses that the company will incur from the hard cap, and that the company is still taking a downturn in the debit sector even with the fees in effect. He admits that these fees are part of their strategy to deal with the legislation but feels that the company isn’t violating antitrust laws.

The transcript of the entire conference call can be read HERE at Seeking Alpha. Many thanks to them for providing it for use to bloggers and media outlets.

Visa’s Ups and Downs

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The Official Merchant Services Blog takes a look at Visa’s wild ride between May 2 and May 3. In the midst of a very active first quarter of 2012, Visa’s earnings report came in. The San Francisco based credit card giant then took a ride on a roller coaster in the span of two days after the report was released.

The Up Vote

The company had good news to report on May 2: Visa said Wednesday that its profit for the first three months of the year was up 30 percent from the year before, primarily because credit card use rose in the United States and overseas. Bloomberg broke down some key statistics from the report in their story here: “The company said Americans rang up 12 percent more on their charge cards for the quarter. Debit card use grew by only 4 percent to $284 million, however, the slowest growth in a year.”

So the boost in Visa profits is tied to an increase in the use of credit cards in the first three months of the year. But it appears the Durbin Amendment, financial reform legislation designed to address problems with swipe debit fees, has slowed down debit card use. As the Bloomberg article reports, the Durbin Amendment appears to be having an impact on profits: “Banks have eliminated some debit card rewards programs since October, when the government limited the fees banks can charge stores for card transactions.”

The profit breakdown for the quarter paints a very rosy picture. Visa’s net income was $1.3 billion, or $1.60 per share. Wall Street was expecting $1.51. Revenue rose 15 percent to $2.6 billion. Wall Street was expecting $2.48 billion.

The Down Turn

And then the roller coaster ride took a dip. Bloomberg reported the next day, May 3, that Visa stock took a decline based on the details of a U.S. Antitrust Probe into Visa’s Debit Strategy. The article states: “Visa Inc., the payments network that has lost market share amid new debit-card rules, slid as much as 4.5 percent in extended trading after disclosing a U.S. antitrust probe into the firm’s pricing and strategy.”

Visa adjusted the network’s fee structure to defend its leading market share after the Durbin Amendment took effect in October. On March 13, the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division issued a civil investigative demand asking for information about Visa’s debit strategy. Bloomberg quotes Visa Chief Executive Officer Joseph W. Saunders as saying in a conference call: “We are confident our actions are appropriate and that our response to the DOJ supports that.”

According to Saunders Visa has received four other requests for information from the Justice Department since 2007, and all have been resolved with Visa’s full cooperation.

The Durbin Factor

The Visa news comes after recent announcement from MasterCard, which stated that their own first-quarter profit increased 21 percent to $682 million. Like Visa, MasterCard’s profits also beat Wall Street estimates.

Speculation suggests that the hard cap on Debit Card Swipe fees imposed by the Durbin Amendment from October 2011 may have helped MasterCard take some market share away from Visa. MasterCard has been winning deals to handle processing of debit transactions according to the company’s Chief Financial Officer Martina Hund-Mejean.

Bloomberg quotes Hund Mejean as saying in a conference call to analysts: “In every quarter we’re going after business very surgically and opportunistically. You can see those results in our numbers.”

And according to Tien-tsin Huang, a JP Morgan Chase & Co. analyst in a May 1 research note, Bank of America Corp. — the biggest debit-card issuer and catalyst of post-Durbin media frenzy — switched to MasterCard.

Visa’s Fees Bite Back

Visa changed its debit-card fees in April, creating new fees like the Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) in an attempt to create incentives for merchants to route more transactions on the company’s network. The fees, which had been variable were broken into various components. To read more about those fees, you can CLICK HERE to see Host Merchant Services‘ own coverage of the April fees. The Bloomberg article suggests that Bank of America switched to MasterCard in reaction to the new Visa fees and MasterCard’s own surgical strike against Visa’s market share.

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A is for Acquirer

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We’ve been working hard the past 7 months at The Official Merchant Services Blog to offer our readers a knowledge base — a place to come frequently to get clear and useful information about the payment processing industry. But we’re always looking to take things a step further. We want to offer more information and be even more helpful. I was recently inspired by this article over at UniBul’s Credit Card Blog which offers a definition of 21 confusing payment processing terms. Credit Card Processing has a lot of buzzwords that get used. This type of technical or industry language can sometimes make understanding statements very difficult for merchants.

Well we want to make these terms clear and remove the confusion. This is part of the ongoing service Host Merchant Services promises: the company delivers personal service and clarity. So we’re going to take some time to explain how everything works. This is going to be an ongoing series where we define industry related terms and slowly build up a knowledge base. We’ll start with the same term that kicked off the UniBul blog. But our coverage is going to go a bit deeper than just a definition. We’ll provide a little extra context. And as we get more and more of these completed, we’ll collect them in our resource archive for quick and easy access.

Hand Inserting Credit Card To A Pos Terminal Payment Terminal Flat Design Vector 64931018

Acquirer

An acquiring bank (or acquirer) is the bank or financial institution that processes credit and or debit card payments for products or services for a merchant. The term acquirer indicates that the financial institution accepts or acquires credit card transactions from the card-issuing banks within an association. The best known (credit) card Associations are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, JCB and China UnionPay.

An acquirer is contacted to authorize a credit card or debit purchase. The acquirer will either approve or decline the debit or credit card purchase amount. If approved the acquirer will then settle the transaction by placing the funds into the seller’s account.

Every time you use your credit or debit card you are using the services of an acquirer. An Acquirer will charge a monthly and/or a per transaction fee to the stores or merchants to facilitate transactions. Acquirers need to be licensed with credit card companies, such as Visa or MasterCard.

To get a better understanding of how payment processing works, you can view this infographic.