The acquirer processing fee is a $0.0195 per transaction fee established by Visa in the spring of 2009.  It is similar to assessments, in that the fee is kept by visa, not passed along to the credit card issuing banks.  This fee replaces a $0.005 per transaction fee.

Mastercard at the same time established a similar fee called the Network Access and Brand Usage Fee (NABU), a $0.0185 per transaction fee which also replaces a previously $0.005 per transaction fee.

The April issue of Digital Transactions magazine estimates that the Acquirer Processing Fee will generate an additional $432M each year for Visa.