MRA absorbs credit card rate increasecontinued from page 1 Visa and MasterCard typically adjust their
interchange rates - the percentage of the transaction processing fee that
goes to the two card companies - in April and October. Visa’s rates
remained unchanged this April, while MasterCard adjusted rates in five
categories, resulting in a small overall increase. “Although many processors took this
as an opportunity to raise rates for their merchants, MRA chose to maintain
rates at the same level,” said John Mayleben, MRA’s vice president
of sales and marketing. “We’re making every effort to keep costs
as low as possible for the 5,000 businesses that process credit cards
through MRA.” This is the third consecutive year without an increase in MRA processing rates. In 1999 the Association was forced to pass on significant rate increases imposed by Visa and MasterCard. Those increases sparked strong protests by MRA and a member letter-writing campaign to the card companies. |