Tennessee Supports Credit Card Processor Transparency
Tennessee House Bill 547 requires credit card processors to include the aggregate fee percentage on monthly Statements. At Payment Depot, We love this idea! Our sales team always advises potential members to find their effective rate when shopping around. To calculate this rate, pull out your old statements and divide the total fees by the total amount processed. We believe that the aggregate fee percentage, or effective rate is the only apples to apples way of comparing processors.
Business owners are constantly harassed by credit card processors promising lower rates and monthly savings. The only real way to know is by looking at the effective rate. Nobody can avoid paying the interchange and dues and assessments that are set and published by the card brands. The only areas that you can control are the processor’s mark-up and their miscellaneous fees.
The most transparent and fair way to process credit cards is interchange plus or pass thru pricing. Payment Depot offers interchange plus 0% pricing to all of our members regardless of size. You will still pay the mandatory interchange and dues and assessments, but we do not take a percentage of your sales for ourselves. We use a pricing model similar to the Wholesale Membership Warehouse clubs and simply charge you are membership fee in exchange for the direct rates and fees from the card brands.
If your effective rate looks high (above 2.5% to 3%) give us a call today! We will let you know what other merchants in your industry are paying using our membership model. A common industry practice is to ask for your statement and offer you a slight savings. The processor will lower the mark up while still keeping a percentage of your sales for their profit. Payment Depot will actually send you statements (personal info redacted) of merchants in your industry so you can see for yourself. You will see what actual Payment Depot members pay with Interchange plus 0% pricing.
We applaud Tennessee for forcing transparency in this industry. Give us a call at 877-876-8776 to see if we can save you money on your processing. We have a 90 day money back guarantee so we don’t want to sign you up unless we know that we can save you money.