Interchange

Also called interchange fee, multilateral interchange fee, MIF

The fee the merchant's bank pays the player's bank on every card payment, set by the card networks or capped by regulators and passed on to the merchant inside the processing price.

The European Commission defines interchange as the fee that “the bank of the retailer (the ‘acquiring bank’) pays” to “the cardholder’s bank” (European Commission). A studio never pays it directly, but it sits inside every card price it is quoted.

Rates depend on where the card was issued. In the EEA, consumer interchange is capped at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit (Regulation 2015/751). For online payments with non-EEA cards at EEA merchants, Visa and Mastercard committed to caps of 1.15% for debit and 1.50% for credit. US credit interchange is unregulated. Visa’s schedule effective 18 April 2026 runs from 1.89% + $0.10 to 2.60% + $0.10 for card-not-present consumer credit (Visa USA).

Small purchases feel the fixed part most. US regulated debit is 0.05% + $0.21, about 21% of a $0.99 sale before any PSP margin. Blended-rate PSPs fold interchange into one headline price, while interchange plus plus pricing shows it line by line. See hidden fees.