Accepting Government Purchase Cards requires a different type of merchant account than a standard retail or internet account.
3 out of 5 suppliers have NOT been set up to process purchase cards properly.
This means 3 out of 5 suppliers are losing up to 40% of additional profits and may be losing businesses their not even aware of.
Many businesses have relied on their bank or existing processor to set up their account. This is fine if you sell if your a retail store accepting consumer and debit cards,
but if your selling to the government or other businesses and processing government or commercial transactions like you
would any other card, your losing up to 40% of additional profit.
special rates were created to encourage suppliers to send Level 3 payment data on purchase cards which in turn will assist buyers in managing their purchase card programs.
The GSA States Level -3 is in demand and participating vendors may experience interest as well as reduce transaction costs by up to 40%.
Both Visa and MasterCard maintain data bases showing which GSA vendors are sending level 3 data.
This reduction in cost for sending level 3 transaction data does not come from your existing payment processor or rate, but lowers a part of interchange (cost) that will otherwise go to the bank issuing the credit card.
This is most likely the reason 3 out of 5 suppliers are not set up to receive level 3 interchange discounts. If you sell to the government or other businesses and your processor or rep hasn’t talked to you about this, I suggest calling and experienced level 3 payment consult for a no obligation purchase card audit.
GSA has not mandated Level 3 (yet), but suppliers can use this to reduce costs as well as get a competitive advantage over their competitors.