Convenience Fee Calculations

Set convenience fees to charge on your transactions.

TabaPay provides for convenience fees on both purchase and disbursements. A Convenience Fee is a charged fixed or variable rate for the convenience of using a specific payment channel. Learn how convenience fees are supported through TabaPay’s processing system.

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Subject to Compliance Approval

Clients must review their use of Convenience Fees with TabaPay’s Compliance team before enabling this feature. Vetting will cover key areas related to debit card processing.

  • Network rules on convenience fees across card brands
  • Restricting use of convenience fee in an alternate payment channel only
  • Consideration of state-level restrictions
  • Restrictions on use cases (for e.g. recurring payments)

Pre-Configure Your Convenience Fee

It is recommended to pre-configure your convenience fee and deduct the fee amount before sending the remaining amount to TabaPay.

Setting Convenience Fee

In unique cases, TabaPay may currently accept a Convenience Fee per transaction using the memo field (in the format x.xx), however this requires additional review by TabaPay compliance. TabaPay recommends pre-configuring the fee within your platform, or configuring it on the TabaPay system rather than passing it dynamically in each request.

• If the convenience fee is unique on each transaction the client will pass in the memo field the convenience fee in the format:

"memo":"convfee=x.xx"

If the convenience fee is to be configured and driven on the TabaPay system, the formula for the convenience fee will be established at time of boarding. The convenience fee must be determinable in software-formulaic. TabaPay supports a fixed amount and/or a variable amount based on the transaction amount. Examples below:

Fixed Amount Fees

  • $0.10 for C2B Purchases
  • $0.15 for all disbursements

Note: Visa only allows fixed amounts, or flat rate convenience fees.

Variable Amount Fees based on the transaction amount (may be restricted to select networks and use cases)

  • 0.1% for C2B Purchases
  • $0.10 + 0.15% for C2B Purchases
  • $0.20 + 0.1% with cap of $2.00 for all disbursements

Convenience fees can be applied to the entire ISO, merchant ID, or a specific string in the TabaPay memo field (API memo field on create transaction) for a given ISO or MID.

Purchase Convenience Fees

  1. Merchant establishes the convenience fee with TabaPay or provide on each transaction.
  2. The merchant's create transaction PULL request must be for the purchase amount + convenience fee.
  3. If convenience fee is charged on a transaction, then:
    a. The transaction amount less convenience fee will settle to the merchant’s settlement account b. The convenience fee will be deposited separately to their fee account – daily. c. The transaction and summary reports will show the transaction amount/settled amount less the convenience fee and the convenience fee is shown in a separate field (convenience fee) Example below:
  • $100 Purchase with a $5 convenience fee
  • Purchase amount pulled from card should be the full $105
  • Note the $5 convenience fee in the memo field
  • $100 will settle with the end customer and the $5 will go into the merchants account of choice

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Convenience Fees vs Surcharge Fees

Convenience Fees are charged fixed or variable rate for the convenience of using a specific payment channel.

Surcharge Fees are percentage-based fees added to credit card transactions to offset processing costs.

Convenience Fees cannot be used with Surcharge Fees. For credit card purchases clients should decide to accept one or the other. Surcharge rates allowed may be different for different networks (Visa vs Mastercard).

Disbursement Convenience fees

  1. Merchant establishes the convenience fee with TabaPay.
  2. The merchant's create transaction PUSH request must be for the purchase amount + convenience fee.
  3. If convenience fee is charged on a transaction, then:
    a. The transaction amount less convenience fee will settle from the merchant’s settlement account b. The transaction and summary reports will show the transaction amount/settled amount less the convenience fee with the convenience fee is shown in a separate field (convenience fee column). c. TabaPay can debit the convenience fee from merchant settlement account and settle to another merchant account or merchant can settle the convenience fee.
  • $100 Payout with a $5 convenience fee
  • Payout amount should be the full $105
  • Note the $5 convenience fee in the memo field
  • $100 will settle with the end customer and the $5 will go into the merchants account of choice

Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs)

TabaPay provides the following options for ISOs to bill and collect fees from their merchants. The TabaPay system can collect fees daily from a merchant or collect monthly.

TabaPay can deposit proceeds to the merchant or ISO.

  • If proceeds deposited to ISO then ISO is debited daily for interchange and assessments
  • If proceeds deposited to Merchant then either Merchant or ISO can be debited for either an MDR or interchange and assessments.

Interchange + network assessments + markup
o Interchange and network assessments are shown for each transaction o Markup is shown for each transaction and can be a fixed amount (e.g. $0.30) and/or a variable amount (e.g. 1%). Examples are:

  • 1% of transaction amount;
  • $0.30 of transaction amount;
  • $0.30 + 1% of transaction amount

Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)
o MDR is shown for each transaction and can be a fixed amount (e.g. $0.30) and/or a variable amount (e.g. 1%). Examples are:

  • 1% of transaction amount;
  • $0.30 of transaction amount;
  • $0.30 + 1% of transaction amount
  • The TabaPay transaction reports show the interchange, assessments, and MDR – but only the MDR is collected for this option.

Process

ISO can register a fee account for each MID or a single account at ISO level.

1.     If interchange + assessments + markup fee structure:

a.     TabaPay collects interchange and network passthru fees daily or monthly:

                                               i.     These fees can be debited separately or if collected daily then deducted from proceeds.

b.     TabaPay collects the markup either daily or monthly.

                                               i.     This fee can be debited separately, or if collected daily then deducted from proceeds.

2.     If an MDR is collected:

a.     TabaPay can collect MDR daily or monthly

 

Paying ISO

  1. If daily MDR is collected from merchant then payment to ISO is daily and is equal to MDR less interchange and less assessments.
  2. If daily interchange + assessments + markup are collected from merchant then markup is paid to merchant daily
  3. If MDR or interchange+assessments collected from merchant monthly then ISO will pay interchange and assessments daily, getting reimbursed at month end and on collecting same from merchant.