What are Interchange fees / Scheme fees?

Interchange fees cover the cardholder’s bank (the issuer) cost related to lines of credit and fraud mitigation. The merchant bank, your bank, (the acquirer) pays this fee to the issuer. For each transaction, the total amount due depends on various factors, among others:

• The geographical location of your company and the cardholder's bank
• The Average Transaction Value (ATV)
• Payment method used (debit / credit card)
• Card type (consumer / commercial card)

Please note that these rates apply for the EEA region. For other regions, different fees may apply.

Interchange fees are not negotiable, but are capped for European consumer* card (not corporate cards) by EU regulations (to 0.3% for credit cards payments and to 0.2% for debit cards).

Due to the Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) and other recent developments such as Brexit and the introduction of PSD2, the general trend is that both fees are prone to changes (ie. Scheme fees are expected to increase in the future). To help you manage these fees, we offer Interchange+ and Blended pricing via our Full service model.

Although this fee is defined by the card brands (i.e. Visa, MasterCard who are also known as schemes), you should not confuse it with the scheme fee. Your acquirer pays scheme fees to the card brands to cover their maintenance costs for providing their payment network. The total amount is composed of assessment fees, cross-border fees, clearing and settlement fees. Similarly, to the Interchange fee, the total amount depends on the card type used and the geographical location of your acquirer.