Blog · Payments · October 10, 2010
[Weekly Kick] What are Assessments?
Assessments make up a small portion of your credit card processing costs. But what exactly are they and where do they go? This week’s FeeFighters Weekly Kick covers these questions. To learn more about assessments, click here and also here.
Video Transcript:
One of the many fees that a business faces when they accept credit cards is called assessments. Assessments are the part of the fees that are kept by Visa and Mastercard. In previous times we’ve talked about interchange which are collected by the processor and passed onto the banks that issued the credit cards.
Assessments are also collected by the processor, but they’re passed on to Visa, Master Card assessments on average or 11 basis points. So point one, one percent. That’s true. Mastercard and visa and they’ve gone up over time, just like a lot of credit card processing fees have so on your bill. If you have a tiered to bill, the assessments might be baked into the tiers where you might see them on a separate line item on a interchange plus bill. They’re always going to be on a separate line item.
Unfortunately, there’s not really anything you can do about assessments, visa or Mastercard at the same level. They’re not really negotiate well and they’re just part of the cost of, of accepting credit cards.
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