Most business owners are excellent negotiators. They negotiate with vendors and business partners every day. Because of their skills in this area, a majority of businesses negotiate their credit card processing fee structure completely on their own, often with little research done beforehand. Credit card processing fees are an area as complicated and convoluted as anything a business ever pays and a majority of businesses simply pay too much for this service unknowingly and unnecessarily.
The problem with trying to negotiate credit card processing is that it has become extremely complicated and difficult to determine if you are being billed correctly. Very few business owners or financial professionals can truly manage this expense without a tremendous amount of research and time and the dollars being wasted are often significant. As an example of the complicated nature in this cost category, in the 1990′s, there were eight (8) different Interchange Categories that Visa and Mastercard assessed to businesses that accept credit cards. Today, there are over 300 Interchange Categories that a business may be charged when accepting a credit card. The explosion of fee categories, rewards cards and ever expanding billing options for credit card processing companies has made it virtually impossible for a business owner to manage this cost.