What is Interchange++?

Interchange ++ is a method of pricing for Merchant Services that is usually reserved for large corporates, due to its transparency, cost efficiencies and ability to simplify a sector that can be somewhat convoluted. When a merchant processes a payment three stakeholders earn revenue from the transaction

Interchange fee

The Interchange fee relates to the card issuer. For example Santander, Lloyds or HSBC. Card issuers earn a revenue from the “Interchange Fee” when a cardholder makes a payment. This is capped at 0.2% for consumer debit and 0.3% for consumer credit cards in the EU.

Scheme fee

The card schemes Visa and Mastercard charge a fee for facilitating the card payment network to process a transaction and earn revenue through their “Scheme Fees”.

Acquirer Fee

Acquiring banks earn a revenue through the “Acquirer Fee” for processing payments into the merchant account. With Interchange ++ pricing the Acquirer Fee is declared.

Blended Pricing – The high street model

The majority of Merchant Banks and ISO (Independent Sales Organisations) offer a “blended rate”, which combines all three of these charges into one overall rate, per card type.

This method of pricing is difficult for companies to track, as the various card types used in the UK, incur different charges and the margin charged by your Acquirer is not declared transparently.

Acquirers will have a “blended” margin with higher or lower margins on certain card types. This also allows Acquirers to more easily hide margin increases into merchant contracts, which we frequently find.

Why is Interchange ++ better?

With the Interchange ++ pricing model, the acquirer’s margin is declared transparently and ethically. In this approach, the Acquirer Fee is declared upfront to the merchant with a % + pence margin per transaction that is applied equally across all card types.

This makes it a lot harder for acquirers to hide margin increases as merchants only need to look at two figures on their statement rather than keep track of what can often be 100+ charges in the blended pricing model.

No authorisation fees
No cardholder, not present / non-qualifying transaction premiums
No additional acquirer premiums for international card traffic
Transparent and ethical pricing

Find out how much you could save with Interchange++ pricing today.

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what our customers say

Unyfi’s procurement expertise helped us to make a significant saving across our properties through aligning contract start and end dates. This has saved us not only money but a significant amount of time as the service is consolidated.

Rony Abraham – Client Accountant – 3SIXTY Real Estate

We’ve worked with Unyfi for a number of years to reduce different cost areas. Throughout the process the expertise they’ve brought has resulted in numerous savings, some of which have had a substantial impact on our operating costs.

Ronald Hazell – Director – Ash Honda

Our new deal was great, reduced rates and massive savings. It was all very easy, working with a forward leaning and professional team was fantastic.

Thanks to Henry and the team. I would recommend you do the same!

Paul Barden – Director – Bloc Climbing

Before using Unyfi, our utility contracts had a variety of contract end dates, which led to an inefficient use of our time. Unyfi aligned all of our renewal dates, allowing us to focus more of our attention on other areas of the business

Jackie Gooding – Finance Manager – Cannon Care Homes

Working with Unyfi has made handling suppliers much easier. We’ve made significant savings and will continue to work with the Unyfi team when we require procurement expertise.

Ruth Nott – Finance & Operations Manager – InHope

We thought we would get a better deal by working direct with energy suppliers but this hasn’t been the case. Unyfi sourced a far better deal for us and we’ve made huge savings, also we’ve gone 100% renewable in the process

Simon Hopkins – Managing Director – Scott Associates

Working with Unyfi has made managing our energy, waste and merchant services much easier. We’ve gone from dealing with multiple unhelpful suppliers with different call centres, to one account manager who is always happy to help and is just a call away. The savings are big bonus too!

Helen Playne – Director – William’s Food Hall & Oyster Bar

Through working with Unyfi, we’ve changed the way we manage our energy contracts. Their expertise has resulted in significant reductions in cost, and saved us time and hassle pricing up the best supplier and cost options

Donna Bates – Relationship & Insight Director – Woven