I am wondering if anybody in this group has experience of negotiating credit card merchant account service for a small company. Our company gets most of revenue from internet credit card billing. We have been using a small processor which charges higher transaction fees. Now our business is growing and we are looking for a more competitive rate from a large processor. I have contacted a few. Some are looking for significant amount of cash reserve, which does not provide any interest. I was told that each merchant account is backed up by the processor. If our company even goes down, the processor has to be liable for refunding the credit card charges on which service has not been provided.
Anybody knows about any processor which provides competitive rates whiling not asking for a lot of reserve?
Thanks!
Lisa
Credit card internet billing merchant account
Answers
I find my banks are much more willing to negotiate than the processing companies. Many banks are vertically integrated with various card services, and banks are as interested in keeping your funds in their bank as they are in making fees off of card services. In fact I think they have card services mainly as a retention play (although they do like the fees). But since your bank already has your money and they know who you are and have a relationship, they tend to feel like they can use a smaller reserve. I find this to be a highly negotiable point with my banks.
The flip side of this is that banks aren't always the lowest cost/transaction which is, I know, what you are looking for. But it's worth a try. Also, try other banks. In order to win your deposits and other transactional business, you will find Wells Fargo and the other big banks much more likely to negotiate the reserve and transaction fees to your benefit - so long as you move your deposits over to them. And big banks do have the scale to give better transaction pricing.
Hope that's helpful.
Also, know what the average ticket processed and the volumes over time, If you can show that ticket price is higher and that the volumes are steadily increasing you may have a bit more clout in negotiating a lower rate. It has been a couple of years since I had to negotiate a rate, but these two items were able to allow me to substantially lower my rates at the time.