Since the government capped debit card swipe fees on October 1, 2011, banks and card associations are looking for ways to make up for lost revenue.   Bank of America Corp plans to charge debit card customers a $5 monthly fee starting in early 2012.  It is rumored that other banks will follow suit.

The debit card swipe fee reform caps debit card swipe fees at about 21 percent, down from close to 44 percent.  Economic analysts expect the cap to save merchants and consumers more than $6 billion a year.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. have hiked the fees they charge to merchants for small ticket transactions. According to Trefis Team’s article “Rising Debit Card Fees May Swipe Value from Visa, MasterCard” on forbes.com, to retrieve lost revenue, “…banks are forcing card networks to raise debit card fees for small transactions.” Paying in cash is quickly becoming outdated; from 2008 to 2011, the number of transactions processed by Visa rose from 37.7 billion to about 54 billion. Trefis believes that it is likely that the fees that merchants pay on a $2 transaction—which is currently at about 8 cents—could possibly triple, and that the increase in fees could decrease the number of transactions—thus hurting Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. stock.

Sources:

http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=110839

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/10/06/rising-debit-card-fees-may-swipe-value-from-visa-mastercard/

We want to congratulate the winners of ChargeLogic’s drawings at Directions 2011.  We had a great time at the show and are pleased that so many of our partners stopped by to see us at the reception.

We also want to thank everyone who attended our session featuring ChargeLogic Connect and ChargeLogic Shipping.   Many of the attendees were excited to hear about the newest addition to Connect: Click-to-Pay Invoicing, which enables businesses to email invoices containing a link to a secure website for online payment by credit card or electronic check.

Connect’s Click-to-Pay Electronic Invoicing is different than other products that email invoices; it allows the customer to pay online in a safe, secure environment using the payment method of their choice.  Payments are then automatically pulled into NAV and applied to the invoice on the customer account.  Eliminate paper invoices and get paid quicker with ChargeLogic Connect’s Click-to-Pay Invoicing.

Now on to our winners!  Congratulations to the following individuals for winning ChargeLogic’s prizes:

$50 iTunes Gift Cards:  Nicole Luer, InterDyn CFO; Laurel Loehlin, BMI; David Thikoll, Silverware; Kevin Lord, Solution Dynamics

$100 Gift Cards: Martin Kerr, Bestborn Business Solutions; Krystal Heffley, InterDyn CFO

iPad: Christian Roach, Open Door Technology

Visit ChargeLogic’s Event page and register for a free online demonstration of any of our products:

ChargeLogic Payments
ChargeLogic Connect
ChargeLogic Shipping