Glossary
Interchange
Interchange is the fee that flows from the acquirer to the issuer on every card payment, set by Visa, Mastercard and the other schemes in tables by card type, issuing region, merchant category and channel. It is the largest part of what a merchant pays for a card payment and it is regulated in several markets: the EU and the UK cap consumer interchange at 0.2 percent for debit and 0.3 percent for credit.
Why it exists and how it varies
Interchange compensates the issuer for the credit risk, the fraud losses and the rewards it gives cardholders. Premium and commercial cards carry higher interchange than standard debit; cross-border payments higher than domestic; card-not-present higher than in-store. Where it is capped, as in the EU and the UK for consumer cards, the differences shrink; where it is not, as in the United States for credit, they are large.
Who sees it
In a blended merchant rate interchange is invisible; in interchange-plus pricing it is passed through line by line, and the merchant’s cost follows its card mix. A PSP buying interchange-plus from an acquirer sees exactly what each card costs and prices its merchants accordingly.
On the platform
Interchange is a cost between the acquirer and the issuer, outside the platform; Tranzify’s fee rules per terminal let a client mirror its acquirer’s price list, and the BIN data on every payment shows which card type produced which fee.
Updated: 2026-11-08