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04/11/2009 -
The issue of payment processing fees has been the subject of heated debate recently, in the U.S., Canada and beyond. Merchants in many countries are complaining of high transaction processing fees, while Canadian merchants are worried that their current low debit card processing fees will disappear with the entry of Visa and MasterCard into the debit card market.
Yet this entire debate could be solved by adding a third party to the payment processing ecosystem, said payment processing expert Todd L. Michaud.
In an article for StorefrontBacktalk.com, Michaud proposed the possibility of eliminating merchant fees for payment processing by having them subsidized by a third party, such as with marketing.
For example, Michaud suggested that banks could sell space at the bottom of receipts or at the top of an electronic signature pad for displaying banner advertisements, thereby paying for the cost of processing the transaction through the marketing fee.
Another solution would be to allow purchase data to be (anonymously) aggregated into a database that is available for marketers to use, also allowing banks to lower payment processing fees.
While these solutions are in no way in the works, the payment processing industry is experiencing major changes in everything from security measures to business models, so the concept is not a far-fetched one.
