Contents tagged with Payment Industry

  • Small Business Lending Down; Demand Up

    December 22, 2011
    In the news this week were several stories about small business lending. In “Bank loans to small business fall to 12-year low” an analysis of FDIC data showed that the number of small loans to business of $1 million or less have been shrinking consistently.

    Small businesses rely almost exclusively on credit provided from banks. One reason small business lending is down was covered in another article, “Why Aren't Small Businesses Getting Loans From Big Banks?” which points to the big banks' new stringent credit policies. Bankers seem to be denying that lending standards are an issue, but small businesses report that borrowing has changed dramatically and has become an extreme process. The evidence seems to support the fact that there has been a fundamental change … more

  • Vantage Study Reveals Results of Fed Regulated Debit in October

    December 02, 2011
    Prior to new Fed rules, as required under the Durbin Amendment of last year's financial-overhaul law, debit Interchange was priced based on numerous factors such as: signature or PIN; card present or not; transaction less than $15 or higher; supermarket or lodging and more. The new Fed regulated debit Interchange in effect since October 1st forced the addition of a new rate to be determined by the size of the cardholder’s bank issuing the debit card. For small banks, with less than $10 billion in assets, the existing debit Interchange rates remained unchanged. However, for the largest banks issuing debit cards, with assets are over $10 billion, the new Fed regulated debit Interchange rate did have an impact on merchant processing costs in October.

    Mega-merchants were expected to … more

  • 2nd Annual Small Business Saturday

    November 22, 2011
    American Express is building on initial success with this year's 2nd annual Small Business Saturday® on November 26th. On one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year, Small Business Saturday is sandwiched between and inspired by Black Friday by Black Friday for the big box retail and Cyber Monday for e-commerce stores. Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to " Shop Smallsm " at local brick and mortar businesses. Nearly 2.4 million have pledged to shop small on Nov 26 with a 'Like' on the Small Business Saturday Facebook page.

    Small businesses can make the most of this day with tools to promote their business with siganage, marketing materials, and by creating and sharing offers. Visit http://smallbusinesssaturday.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/ … more

  • Banks steer customers towards credit cards

    November 11, 2011
    According to the latest data from Visa, more people are starting to use credit cards, not for the line of credit, but as they would a debit card. And this is just what the banks are hoping for.

    Visa reported for its fourth quarter that spending on Visa-branded credit cards in the U.S. grew faster than debit cards. The initial driver may have been punitive debit pricing, and even though that strategy failed to stick, one could argue that it did accomplish getting consumers to consider other payment options including credit cards.

    Banks are increasingly promoting credit over debit in the face of shrinking debit Interchange. Both credit and prepaid cards are exempt from the recently imposed Fed regulated debit Interchange fee caps. To maximize Interchange fee income, banks will try to move … more

  • Will Bank Transfer Day Impact Merchants?

    November 04, 2011
    News story after news story are reporting the same thing – a lot more of us are switching to credit unions and community banks. This spike in activity is being attributed in part to the scandal over announcements by the mega banks to impose new cardholder debit fees. In fact, November 5th (that’s this Saturday1) – has been organized as “Bank Transfer Day”, a movement encouraging big bank customers to close their accounts and make the switch.

    For those following the Durbin Amendment’s debit card Interchange regulations, and the impact on small merchants like we are, we have to ask - what good does it do merchants to have consumers switch to financial institutions who were made exempt in the Durbin Amendment from the Fed's regulated debit rate? Bank … more

  • Durbin’s Debit a Trick or Treat for Small Merchants

    October 27, 2011
    Merchant statements soon to reveal who gets savings from lower debit Interchange.

    Next week, most merchants will get their first chance to see if they saved money on their card processing fees due to the Fed’s mandated lower debit rates that took effect October 1st. Typically merchants receive monthly statements at the beginning of each new month showing both processing activity and how fees were applied. Some merchants don’t open their statements and many merchants don’t understand how to read them when they do, but clearly if there was ever a statement to pay attention to, it would be the October statement that’s about to be delivered.

    Merchant service providers are not required to directly pass the reduced rates of the Fed regulated debit transactions (and the … more

  • Visa’s Network Participation Fee scheduled for April 2012

    October 27, 2011
    On the Visa Q4 2011 Earnings Call yesterday, Visa stated "We're also moving forward with our modified debit economics, including the implementation of our network participation fee and the reduction of variable acquiring fees on debt, Visa debit and Interlink. As stated last quarter, we believe this offers merchants greater incentive to route transactions over our network and an opportunity to lower their per-unit transaction costs. As for details, we anticipate providing the specific pricing information to merchants and acquirers in January, which will go into effect on April 1." more

  • DepositGuard offers new and improved Property Rental Payments

    October 13, 2011
    DepositGuard is a payment technology platform for property rental payments that securely collects, holds and administers the deposits and pre-paid rents for vacation and residential property transactions, benefitting both renters and homeowners (including landlords, property managers and rental agents).

    Unlike other payment methods, a merchant account is not required to accept Visa/MasterCard payments and there are no fees for homeowners to use DepositGuard.

    DepositGuard is a neutral third-party account where the rental funds are parked for safekeeping. Both the renter and landlord have full visibility into the account and must be in agreement before the account can be created, changed, closed and any money released.

    DepositGaurd gives renters more control over the payment process by … more

  • Will the banking industry apply a little Steve Jobs creativity?

    October 08, 2011
    So far the initial reaction to the Fed regulated debit Interchange from the major banks has been anything but creative. Predictable yes; creative no. We've seen many regulated debit card issuers adding restrictions to free checking and ending debit card reward programs. And Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, SunTrust and Regions are all trying out variations of imposing new debit card usage fees on cardholders. These strategies are like adding a fee for paper billing statements to encourage the switch to e-statements, yet it’s hardly creative.

    Steve Jobs was a master at consumer-driven markets and a great innovator who turned iTunes into a successful micro-payment platform. Surely we should expect bank innovators to adopt more creative ideas, right? For example, we know … more

  • Visa ends Credit Voucher Interchange for debit transactions

    October 02, 2011
    Another over looked consequence of the debit Interchange revisions, effective October 1st, is the impact on cardholder refunds due to changes in the Visa ‘Credit Voucher’ program.

    Visa has made modifications to its Credit Voucher Interchange fee program to coincide with other operational changes to comply with the new debit regulatory requirements ushered in by the Federal Reserve such as capping regulated debit card Interchange rates.

    Credit Voucher Interchange fees are paid to the merchant acquirer (processor or service provider) by the card issuer when cardholder refunds are processed. This is the reverse of what happens during a sale transaction where the merchant pays a discount rate to accept the card payment.

    With this Visa adjustment, the processing volume for debit … more