Before You Sign That Payments Contract, Read These 10 Clauses The rate looks great. The salesperson is persuasive. The...
Cost Optimization
Card Fees Versus Pay-by-Bank: When Should an SMB Offer Both?
Card Fees Versus Pay-by-Bank: When Should an SMB Offer Both? Payment acceptance involves more than choosing a checkout...
VAMP, ECM, and the New Math of Chargebacks: What Smaller Merchants Need to Track Now
VAMP, ECM, and the New Math of Chargebacks: What Smaller Merchants Need to Track Now Visa and Mastercard have spent...
Is Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Right for Your Business – A Practical Guide
What Every Merchant Should Know Before Offering Buy Now, Pay Later For years, merchants have been told that Buy Now,...
Payment Descriptors: The Small Line on a Card Statement That Can Prevent Disputes
Payment Descriptors: The Small Line on a Card Statement That Can Prevent Disputes Customer disputes, some of which...
Why Payment Choice Is More Important Than Payment Price
Why Payment Choice Is More Important Than Payment Price Merchant payment strategy has long focused on price, including...
The Rise of Invisible Payments
The Rise of Invisible Payments Invisible payments are becoming a quiet but important shift in how customers complete...
Five Payment Metrics Every Small Business Should Track (Hint: It’s Not Just Processing Fees)
Five Payment Metrics Every Small Business Should Track (Hint: It's Not Just Processing Fees) Ask most small business...
Surcharging Isn’t a Silver Bullet—It’s a Legal Minefield
Surcharging Isn’t a Silver Bullet—It’s a Legal Minefield As margins tighten, more SMBs are turning to surcharging to...
The Hidden Revenue Leak: How SMBs Are Losing 5–15% to Avoidable Payment Declines
The Hidden Revenue Leak: How SMBs Are Losing 5–15% to Avoidable Payment Declines Most SMBs obsess over getting...
Payments Steering – 3 Tools to Reduce Your Payments Cost
Payments Steering – 3 Tools to Reduce Your Payments Cost For US merchants, card acceptance costs have become one of...
Daylight at the End of the Tunnel? Coming Milestones in the Visa/Mastercard Antitrust Case
Daylight at the End of the Tunnel? Coming Milestones in the Visa/Mastercard Antitrust Case The case is approaching a...
Card Acceptance Costs: What Merchants Can Actually Do
Card Acceptance Costs: What Merchants Can Actually Do Interchange and network fees routinely consume 2–3% of merchant...
Embedded Payments Are No Longer Optional for Small Businesses
Embedded Payments Are No Longer Optional for Small Businesses For years, payments were treated as a necessary but...
Interchange and Value Redistribution: Clarity in the Noise
Interchange and Value Redistribution: Clarity in the Noise A recent Harvard Business School working paper has drawn...
Visa / MC Interchange Litigation Update
Visa / MC Interchange Litigation Update Judge’s Questions Imply Preliminary Approval of Settlement Likely April 29,...
Your Credit Card Processor in 2026: Who Are You Really Working With — and How Do They Make Money?
Your Credit Card Processor in 2026: Who Are You Really Working With — and How Do They Make Money? By Dean Sheaffer,...
Faster Payments: What SMBs Need to Know
Faster Payments: What SMBs Need to Know Faster payments are no longer a future concept—they are here, and they’re...
What’s Coming Next for In-Store vs. Online Payments — And Why SMBs Should Care
The Future of In-Store Payments: Invisible, Faster, and More Secure In-store payments are moving toward a simple goal:...
The 1.25% Interchange Cap: What SMBs Need to Know About the Proposed Visa/Mastercard Settlement
If you’re a small or mid-sized business owner, you’ve probably heard buzz about the proposed Visa/Mastercard...
What Interchange-Related Benefits Does the Proposed Settlement Provide?
1. A multi-year reduction in credit-card interchange Visa and Mastercard have agreed to reduce average credit...
💸 The Hidden Cost of “Simplicity” in Payment Solutions: What Small Merchants Should Know
For small business owners, “simple” and “free” are powerful words. Free setup. Free POS hardware / software. Free...
Beyond the Card: How ACH is Transforming Retail Transactions
As the costs of processing credit card payments continue to rise, more merchants are seeking cost-effective...
Calculating Your Cost of Payment Card Acceptance – and Lowering It!
In today’s cash-light economy, accepting credit and debit cards is essential for most merchants. But with every card...
A Summary of the Varying Benefits of Debit Interchange Regulation
The caps on debit interchange implemented in 2011 benefited merchants to different degrees, largely dependent on...
Payments Steering – What it is, Why You Want to, and Key Considerations
In this article we will explore Payments Steering – a set of levers any merchant can pull to help reduce (and even...
Are you overpaying for card payments? The Wild West of Merchant Acquiring
Fifteen years ago, the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill established reduced rates for...
Pay-by-Bank – Past, Present and Future
The Payments Roundup team recently sat down with Alexandre (Alex) Gonthier,...
CMSPI State of the Industry Synopsis
The "State of the Industry Report" by CMSPI provides a comprehensive analysis of the current trends, challenges, and...
Verizon Pay-by-Bank Case Study
Verizon and Trustly Bring “Pay by Bank” to Retail Stores, Aiming to Cut Costs and Boost Customer Experience In a...
Can Merchants Effectively Deploy Credit Card Surcharging?
As increasing credit card processing fees continue to erode thin retail margins, more merchants are reluctantly...
Why Merchants Are Rethinking Payment-Based Discounts
Merchants have long used “discounting” as a tool to boost sales and build customer loyalty. In today’s evolving...
The Interchange Conundrum: A Novel Solution
Introduction For the last several decades, the notion that the U.S. payment system’s interchange structure is broken...