The price of the swipe is being rewritten
In a single month, courts on three continents rewrote what a card payment costs, and who gets to say no to one. A short guide for platforms whose pricing has to keep up with the new rules.
Four rulings. One message: card pricing moves now.
For fifteen years, the price of taking a card was a number you could plan around. This month it became a number decided in courtrooms. Four separate moves, in the US, the UK, and Australia, all point the same way.
Oct 26 · US: A court vacates the debit cap
The Eighth Circuit struck down the Federal Reserve's 21¢ debit interchange cap, in place since 2011. Only the cost of one more transaction may count. The Fed must now rebuild the cap.
Nov 16 · US: The card-network settlement goes to a judge
A Brooklyn judge decides the settlement covering 12 million-plus merchants: credit interchange down 10 basis points for five years, standard consumer cards capped at 1.25% for eight. Merchants may decline whole card categories for the first time.
Oct 26 · UK: About £5bn of interchange claims
Two collective claims at the Competition Appeal Tribunal cover card fees paid from October 2020 to October 2026, one for smaller businesses, one for larger ones.
Oct 1 · Australia: Surcharges banned, credit interchange cut
Businesses can no longer surcharge card payments, and the consumer credit interchange cap falls from 0.8% to 0.3%. The cost moves into prices and margins.
Three shifts platforms should plan for
None of these changes takes effect tomorrow. The debit cap stays until the court issues its mandate, and the settlement needs a judge's approval on November 16, with an appeal likely after that. But the direction is set.
Debit is headed toward the cost of one swipe
Analysts estimate a rebuilt cap could fall below 5¢ for the largest banks, from 21¢ today. A platform moving 100,000 debit transactions a month would see roughly $16,000 a month swing on that gap alone.
What it asks of you: know your debit mix.
Merchants can say no to a whole card category
If the settlement is approved, a merchant could decline premium or commercial cards while still accepting standard ones.
What it asks of you: your checkout has to tell card categories apart.
Surcharging is being squeezed. Steering is the lever left
Australia banned surcharges outright. In the US, objections and an expected appeal stretch the timeline into 2027.
What it asks of you: steer the payment to a cheaper method, bank instead of card, with the customer's choice intact.
The math your pricing engine has to do
A bank payment costs a fraction of a card payment. On a $1,000 payment, the gap is more than twenty dollars, every single time.
The $1,000 payment, at published rates
- Card online, 2.7% + 20¢
- $27.20
- Card in person, 2.4% + 15¢
- $24.15
- Bank, 0.5% capped at $3.95
- $3.95
The bank payment saves $23.25 against the online card, and the saving is yours to share with the customer or keep as margin.
A checklist for platforms that price payments
- Map your card mix by category.What share of your volume is standard, premium, commercial, debit?
- Price by category, not by "card".Your engine should know which card it is before it quotes a price.
- Give customers a cheaper way to pay, and show the saving.Bank payments at 0.5%, capped at $3.95, against 2.7% + 20¢ online. Offer it at checkout, with the saving visible.
- Put pricing changes behind a decision, not a deploy.Repricing should be a recorded decision with a reason.
- Watch two dates: Nov 16 and the Fed's rebuild.Either one can move your costs.
- Keep the receipt for every pricing choice.Rate, card category, rail, reason, recorded when the decision is made.
- Test the steering before you steer a live payment.Run your volume through a shadow check first. Decide on evidence, not on a hunch.
Starting with ezpymt
Either path covers more than online checkout: terminals and tap to pay in person, QR codes, pay-by-link, invoices, and recurring memberships all land in one account. Or start in Shadow Mode: ezpymt watches your live payments for 90 days and shows what it would have decided. Nothing changes until you flip it live.
Approval Layer
Keeps the processor and bank you already have. ezpymt adds the decision layer on top, so pricing and routing rules are governed without a rebuild.
Governed Payments
Embedded, branded payments with approval built in for every transaction; ezpymt runs the rails for you as well.
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- Next business day or instant payouts. The payout fee is shown before you confirm.
- Test before you go live
- Volume pricing available over $100,000 a month. Talk to us.
- Published rates to plan from: card in person 2.4% + 15¢, online 2.7% + 20¢, bank 0.5% capped at $3.95, vendor payout $1.49.
Price for the rules that are coming, not the ones that are going.