Have you noticed the media blitz over what’s being referred to as ‘Durbin Dollars’, the savings from lower Fed regulated debit Interchange rates? Of course the best way for merchants to realize the benefits of this legislation is to have an Interchange pass through pricing plan. At Vantage we have been evangelizing direct Interchange pass through pricing schedules (and working with merchants on managing their Interchange qualifications to lower their bottom line card processing costs) for over a decade. In the first paragraph of our October 2000 home page we advised merchants on the concept of “Interchange qualification management”. Seriously, who else was talking with merchants about managing Interchange back in 2000?

Your card processor is not required to pass the reduced rates for the Fed regulated debit transactions (and the associated savings) on to your business. Therefore it is very important that merchants have a direct Interchange pass through pricing structure and select a processing partner that's contract-free (hint: Vantage Card Services provides a true month-to-month merchant services agreement with no early termination fee).

Clearly not all merchant service providers are created equal. Trusted since 1996, Vantage features the best value package of price, terms, service, solutions and incentives available in the payments industry. Vantage focuses on your bottom line cost of service, helping organizations to qualify for the lowest possible Interchange rates available while eliminating mid and non-qualified tiered based, rate-as-low-as pricing schemes and eliminating fees such as monthly minimum fees, batch closing fees and annual service fees.

In July we posted a chart showing the likely impacts to merchants of the Fed regulations with an analysis of Visa and MasterCard charges for the processing of debit cards for retail, restaurant and ecommerce merchant categories to project possible savings for a range of transaction sizes from $10 to $75. Now that October is here it’s not too late to move to a provider that specializes in helping all merchants, large and small, move to Interchange pricing.