What is interchange — and why does your card rate mention it?
Every card payment carries a fee that goes to the customer’s bank, not to your payment provider. Understanding it is the difference between reading your rate and guessing at it.
By The Checky Pro team
On this page
When a customer pays you with a card, the money does not travel in a straight line. It moves from their bank — the issuer — through the card network, through an acquirer, and finally to you. Almost everyone in that chain charges something, and the largest single piece usually is not your payment provider’s margin at all. It is interchange: a fee set by the card schemes that flows to the customer’s bank.
Interchange exists because the issuing bank carries real costs and real risk. It funds the card programme, fronts the money the moment your customer taps “pay”, handles the fraud exposure, and waits for the customer to actually settle their account. Interchange is how the system compensates the bank for that.
Why the rate is never one number
Interchange is not a single percentage. It varies with the card — a consumer debit card in the EU carries a capped, low rate, while a corporate credit card issued outside Europe can cost many times more. It varies with the channel, the country and sometimes the merchant category. The scheme publishes the tables; nobody reads them for fun.
That variation is exactly why blended pricing became popular. A blended rate rolls interchange, scheme fees and the provider’s margin into one flat percentage. It looks simple, and it is — but it means cheap payments subsidise expensive ones, and you can never see which part of the price is real cost and which part is margin.
Blended versus IC++, side by side
| Blended | IC++ | |
|---|---|---|
| What you see | One flat percentage | Interchange + scheme fee + margin, itemised |
| Cheap cards (EU debit) | Same flat rate | You pay the low real cost |
| Expensive cards (corporate, non-EU) | Same flat rate | You pay the higher real cost |
| When your card mix improves | Provider keeps the difference | Your costs drop automatically |
| Best for | Predictability at low volume | Transparency as volume grows |
Both models pay the same interchange underneath — the difference is who sees it and who keeps the swings.
What this means on our rate card
We chose a middle way. Our rate card is a blended price, but split by the kind of card: EEA cards at 2,95% + € 0,25, with +1% for UK cards and +1,75% for premium, business and international cards. The expensive cards carry their own surcharge, so your everyday debit payments do not pay for them.
The surcharges sit exactly where interchange really differs: EU consumer cards are capped, UK cards no longer are, and premium, business and non-EU cards cost every provider more. One number per card type — no tables to decode, and no flat rate that hides the swings.
That is the whole story: interchange is the cost of the card system itself. A single flat rate hides it, IC++ passes it through — we publish a rate per card type, and the full rate card is public on our pricing page.
Frequently asked
Is interchange the same for every card?
No — it varies with the card type, where it was issued and how the payment is made. EU consumer cards are capped; corporate and non-EU cards cost more. That variation is the whole reason IC++ exists.
Who receives the interchange fee?
The customer’s bank — the issuer. Your payment provider passes it on; under IC++ you can see exactly how much that was per payment.
Is IC++ always cheaper than blended?
Usually, but not by definition. With a very expensive card mix the pass-through can exceed a flat rate. What IC++ always is, is honest: you pay the real cost plus a margin you can see.