Article Sphere Logo
 

Merchant Account Basis Points and What They Mean

By Expert Author: Ben Dwyer | Article Abstract
Word Count: 447 words | Views: 13 view(s)
The terms "basis point" in reference to credit card processing and merchant accounts is used to refer to the percentage of a sale that a business pays their service provider to processing a credit card transactions. Basis points sound a lot more complicated than they really are. Simply put, the basis points are 1/100th of 1 percent or 0.01% and they're used specifically when referring to the discount rate that a merchant pays to process credit cards.

For example, a typical three-tier merchant account could have a qualified rate 1.69% or 169 basis points, a mid-qualified surcharge or 30 basis points or .3% and a non-qualified surcharge of 100 basis points or 1%. A merchant account with more direct interchange plus pricing could have a discount charge of 33 basis points or .33% over interchange.

Since credit card processing discount rates are typically less than 5% with most being less than 2.5%, fractions of a percent often come into play. The term basis points makes it easier to discuss these smaller amounts without having to constantly express a number as a decimal or fraction.

Now that you know what the term means, it's important to understand that basis points are used to calculate what will amount to the bulk of a merchant account fees. Bass points are used to refer to the discount rate that is applied to a merchant's credit card transactions. With a tiered merchant account, the first tier will always have the most basis points followed by the mid and non-qualified tiers that are expressed as a surcharge that must be added to the qualified rate to arrive at the total basis points for that tier.

A merchant account that utilizes an interchange plus or cost plus pricing structure will only have one figured that is the provider's markup charged for processing services. This figure is added to Visa or MasterCard's interchange percentage which is also referred to in basis points, to arrive at the total amount charged for a transaction. For example, if a transaction has an interchange charge of 158 basis points and the provider's fee is 30 basis points, the total discount charge the merchant would have to pay is 188 basis points or 1.88%.

Understanding processing charges is far more important that knowing or even using the industry terminology that's used to calculate them. Half the battle in understand how merchant processing works is learning the professional lingo. If you find the term basis points or any other merchant account term to be confusing, put it aside and concentrate on understanding rates and fees in a way that makes sense to you. Just remember that one basis point equals 1/100th of one percent of .01%.
Ben Dwyer

About the Author/Author Bio

This article examining a merchant account basis point and more can be found at Merchantcouncil.org to help you find the best merchant account for your credit card processing needs.

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Merchant-Account-Basis-Points-and-What-They-Mean/186153

Article Submitted: 2009-05-14 | This Article has been viewed 13 times.

More "Merchant Accounts" Related Articles

 
 

Listed below are more articles related to the above article from the "Merchant Accounts" article category.

People interested in the above article "Merchant Account Basis Points and What They Mean" are also interested in the related articles listed below:

 
Taking five minutes to clean the magnetic strip reader on your credit card processing machine can save you big on processing charges each month. The magnetic strip on the back of a credit or debit card holds information about the cardholder that a credit card machine reads when the card is swiped through its reader.
This article covers four tips to help you lower your merchant account processing fees. Even if a single one of these tips applies to your situation, you may be able to cut your processing expenses substantially.
There are many incentives to start accepting credit cards as a form of payment for the products and services that your business offers. The benefits of accepting credit cards almost always outweigh the risks, and the chances of this are greatly improved if you do your homework before opening a merchant account. In this article I'll talk about the importance of accepting credit cards, what to expect as you compare merchant accounts and how to keep your merchant account in good standing once you begin processing.
An extremely important but seldom talked about topic regarding credit card processing is that of merchant account holds. One of the most financially devastating things that can happen to a business is for a processing bank to freeze its merchant account. If this happens to your merchant account, you won't be able to access the account and your funds from open authorizations will be held without deposit for an undisclosed period of time.
Anyone that's had to deal with merchant accounts and credit card processing will tell you that the subject can get pretty confusing. There's a lot to know when looking for new merchant processing services or when you're trying to decipher an account that you already have. You've got to consider discount fees, qualification rates, interchange, authorization fees and more. The list of potential charges seems to go on and on.
Not for profit businesses are often able to receive discounted pricing for many business services because of their legal structure. However, most merchant service providers don't give non-profit merchant accounts special consideration. The news isn't all bad, though. If you're a non-profit business looking for credit card processing, you can get low rates and fees by finding a niche provider or by using your company's legal structure as bargaining power.
Over the past several years many credit card processing calculators that estimate a business's monthly processing costs in an attempt to make the task of comparing merchant accounts transparent have popped up on various web sites. A credit card processing calculator sounds like a useful tool at first, but the reality of creating one that's accurate is another story.
 
Article Directory Home All Categories Business Merchant Accounts
 

Can't find what you're looking for? Try Google Search!
 
Copyright © 2005 - by Larry Lim, Singapore - Article Search Engine Directory at ArticleSphere.com™
All Rights Reserved Worldwide. All Trademarks and Servicemarks are the property of the respective owners.

Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Belarusian Bulgarian Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish German English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italiano Japanese Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Dutch Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish