Prediction #1 – The Durbin Amendment will be repealed, raising Check Card / Debit Interchange costs by 30%+. This will be a major shift in the industry and if you don’t think it is going to happen, read this article from TheHill.com entitled: It’s Time to Repeal Dick Durbin’s Corporate Give Away. Here is another post showing that voters don’t like the government being involved with Interchange: Voters Agree: Get Government Out of Interchange, Repeal the Durbin Amendment.
If you are selling on Tier Pricing, you need to think through this strategy and the impact on your retention when you are forced to dramatically increase your qualified check card rate. If you are selling Interchange Plus, be ready to educate your clients on this change. Remember that trust is built through exchange of information. Leverage this opportunity to reach out to all of your clients and educate them on this congressional fight. They may even be interested in writing their local representatives and US Senator to express their support for the Durbin Amendment.
Prediction #2 – Surcharging is going to become mainstream. If you are still unfamiliar with surcharging, you need to start doing your research so you are ready! Tomorrow I will put out a list of surcharging FAQ’s for your review followed by my advice to prepare for this change. If you still think Surcharging is on the fringe, you are correct, but it is a powder keg just waiting for the right series of events to blow up. Keep a close eye on this!
Personal Plug: Our Instant Quote Tool allows you to provide a savings proposal with surcharging credits included. Because our Interchange Algorithm predicts the card types for each business, we can identify those transactions that would be eligible for surcharging and then add your percentage surcharge as a credit on the savings proposal.
Prediction #3 – You will be using the Instant Quote Tool in 2017. In my original predictions post the first week of January, I talked about some of the changes we would be rolling out. These included a merchant facing tool where you could provide an instant quote to your merchants using a landing page linked to your Instant Quote Tool Profile. I talked about a full, side by side tool that uses an algorithm to predict the merchant’s current fees and I talked about a team solution for the small to mid-sized ISO’s with reporting. I am ready to roll out all 3 of these next week! You will get your invite for the live event soon, but if you haven’t already started a free trial, this is a great time to do so! Visit instantquotetool.com to start your trial and stay tuned for exciting updates!
Prediction #4 – I predicted that a POS Software company would emerge that will be the big winner and market leader in that space… I am still waiting… Stay tuned.
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