B2B Payments
February 28, 2019
Visa and Mastercard 2019 Rate Increases Explained
Visa, Mastercard, and Discover raised processing fees in April 2019—see what changed, how it affects merchants, and what you can do to offset higher costs.
Interchange and network fees are one of the biggest drivers of what merchants actually pay to accept cards, and they change on a set schedule set by the card networks rather than by any individual processor. Below is the original 2019 announcement of one such increase, which illustrates how these adjustments typically work and why they matter for any business that accepts credit or debit cards.
Credit card companies Visa, Mastercard, and Discover, will raise their processing fees in April 2019, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Card network fee increases like this one are typically passed through to merchants via their processor, often as a small percentage or per-transaction bump buried in a monthly statement. Because networks update rates twice a year, in April and October, the cumulative effect over several years can meaningfully change a merchant's effective processing cost — even if no single increase looks dramatic on its own. Reviewing a current merchant statement against the latest published network rates is the most reliable way to see whether a business is absorbing these increases unnecessarily, or whether its processor is passing along more than the networks actually charge.
CARDZ3N helps merchants audit their statements against current interchange and assessment schedules, and can often find savings that offset network-driven rate increases like this one. Contact us for a free statement review.
Every merchant's processing setup is different, so the right answer depends on your industry, sales channels, average ticket size and chargeback history. CARDZ3N's payments specialists review those details with you and match your business with the right sponsor bank, gateway and risk tools, whether you sell online, in store, by invoice or on a recurring subscription.
We work with merchants across the USA, Canada, the UK and the EU, including high-risk, B2B and fast-growing businesses that traditional processors often turn away. If you would like a second opinion on your current rates, contract terms or approval options, contact our team for a free, no-obligation processing review.
CARDZ3N Inc is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, and provides merchant services to businesses that traditional processors turn away. Backed by top-tier sponsor banks and processors, CARDZ3N combines institutional stability with the speed of a specialized team that understands high-risk industries. Services include high-risk account underwriting and placement, gateway solutions across the major gateway platforms, POS integrations, ACH and check processing, chargeback prevention through ChargebackZ3N, and business lending and working capital. Its AerospacePay division serves OEMs, MROs, FBOs, and repair stations with B2B and B2G payment processing. CARDZ3N serves merchants in the USA, Canada, the UK, and the EU.
9/30/2026
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