My Merchant Account Blog

Visa and MasterCard Defined

Monday, May 15, 2006

You probably accept Visa and MasterCard in your business or over the Internet. And you get charged to accept these cards. Not once, but every time.  If you take a look at your merchant account statement, you will see Merchant Account Fees:

• Discount Rate
• Transaction Fee
• Address Service Verification Fee (AVS Fee)
• Batch Fee
• ACH Fee

Most of these fees vary per Merchant Account Providers.  Some providers (like First Data) will charge the merchant extra fees on top of what Visa and MasterCard charge.  Of course, some of these fees help keep the company in business.  However, a lot of the fees (like the batch fee and ACH fee are not usually charged by other merchant account providers.  These fees alone can usually cost a business around $10.00 to $15.00 extra a month.  Most small United States businesses think they are "stuck" with these high fees, when in fact, they are not. 

But Visa and MasterCard are not banks - they are registered and trademarked brands and vast processing networks for credit and debit card transactions. Advertising plays a very big role in promoting the brands so in turn, they promote the use of the cards.

Visa

"Don't leave home without it."  With Visa being what is known as a card association, it is also a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, banks and governments in more than 200 countries and territories, enabling them to use digital currency instead of cash and checks. 

Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers.

It is one of the world's most advanced processing networks, capable of handling over 20,000 transactions per second.  To read more about Visa, Visa net, Visa Inc, please check out Visa International Operating Regulations.

MasterCard

"Priceless" - this ad debuted approximately 30 years after a group of banks came together to form this brand.  MasterCard World is a multinational corporation, based in Purchase, New York in the United States.  It is scheduled to become a public company in about 10 days.

MasterCard's customers include approximately 22,000 financial institutions and other entities in more than 210 countries and territories.  Powered by the MasterCard Worldwide Network, MasterCard processes more than 23 billion transactions per second.  The network has a 99.9% reliability rate and an average network response time of 130 milliseconds per transaction.

If you accepts these credit card brands on your website, you will want to read our post Credit Card Logos.  Here, you can download the images needed for these brands, as well as Discover, American Express, and JCB.

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