Level 3 credit card processing savings

If your company accepts credit cards from other businesses and or government and your not including level 3 credit card processing data, you are leaving a lot of money on the table, that you cannot get from a processor. The chart below shows the level 3 credit card processing savings and the high ticket interchange rates.

Including level 3 payment detail when you accept a commercial, business, purchase, fleet or government card can save you up to 1.5% in interchange fees.

Here’s the thing. The majority of the fees you pay to accept credit cards has nothing to do with the rate you negotiate with a processor, its going back to the card issuing bank. To make this even more complicated, when it comes to commercial/B2B cards, these interchange rates can cost you up to 1.5% more, before your processor ads their fee.

You can view a great example of this on Visa‘s website. Take a look at page 13. Assuming you have a cost plus merchant account and accept a keyed in purchase card. You are either paying 1.90% or 2.70% before your processor adds their fee.  The ONLY way transactions will clear at the 1.90% is if level 3 line item detail is included with the transaction. Otherwise you end up paying 80 additional basis points for the same transaction.

Level 3 line item detail is information you may find on an invoice that is included with a credit card transaction.  You can view the exact information on our level 3 processing page.  You will need to make  sure your payment device is capable of supporting the additional detail requirements.

In the past, you could not receive level 3 rates if you used a terminal.  They did not support the additional data. Our optimization solves this problem by automating the level 3 rate qualification regardless of your processing method. Give us a call if you’d like to learn more about this solution.

I’ve been in this business long enough to know (25 years) that most businesses have been conditioned to only look at a processors rate when evaluating rates. Don’t get me wrong, having a low processors rate is important however, the majority of your fees have nothing to do with the rate you negotiate with your processor.

There are over 700 different interchange rates and rules that can change every April and October.

If you have never had a true interchange audit an level 3 credit card processing savings analysis give us a call at 888 790 3450 or email sean @ revolution-payments.com for your free review.