CardX in Digital Transactions: “Cash Discounts: Surcharges by Any Other Name?”
“While there is interest in both pricing strategies, surcharges apparently still are more popular than cash discounts.
Since ISOs often hire tech firms to implement cash-discount or surcharge programs, ‘it’s important to have a partner that has done the legwork,’ Miller says. ‘Also, they have to be on top of state laws.’
The operational tasks include identification of the card in a qualified transaction, proper calculation of the final price, notification in the case of surcharges of an ISO’s merchant-acquirer partner and the card networks, and proper signage, according to CardX’s Razi.
Razi argues that surcharges are a more straightforward way of enabling a merchant to reduce its card-acceptance costs than cash discounting.
‘We signed more than 3,000 locations this year,’ Razi said in early December.”