Lowest merchant account transaction fees

[davidel]

Hi All,
Our merchant account is with Westpac. Chosen mainly for convenience when we were getting established, we didn't do much shopping around. They charge now us 3.33% on transactions.

I have read comments in other threads by David Ferguson and others, saying that people should look for rates at approx 2.5% or lower.

Who offers these rates? Lets see who can find the lowest and best merchant account.

[davidel]

make sure it is one that works through ezimerchant's supported gateways. I would prefer to know about those via DirectOne, but lets hear about all of them.

[bcarroll]

It really has everything to do with transaction volumes and your relationship with your bank.
Without info of your card turnover its useless to say that I get x% as the volumes may be worlds apart and its not appropriate to discuss such in a public forum as this

[dferguson]

If you ring a bank and ask them for the standard Mastercard/Visa merchant fee they will give you their standard rate (as a percentage).

Remember, there are two ways to process cards - Manually/Offline using an standard EFTPOS terminal OR in Real Time.

Your bank may offer the same or different rates depending on which way you want to process your cards - Either way however aim for less than 2.5%. (Amex of course will be a different and usually a more expensive rate than Mastercard/Visa)

[everten]

Just a word of advice, if you can sign up with an industry association that is associated with the type of product you sell, you can usually get much lower rates through joint negotiation. I have my manual facilities through the Commonwealth Bank even though I bank with Westpac and they give me rates of 0.73% which is the best I have found anywhere.

Good luck.

[niko]

My rates with Bendigo bank are just under 2%. However I use manual transaction because it is too dangerous to assume automated is the way to go. The number of transactions I make is small thus it doesn't worry me to do it manually. However you also got to look at the monthly charges as well. I was with ANZ bank for my loans and credit cards and ever since they annoyed me some 2 years ago I have had nothing but great and cheap service from Bendigo.

[niko]

Industry associations often require you to pay some monies for the service. Would that be the case in this situ?