TSYS Credit Card Processing Fees, Updates, and Interchange Rate Increases (2023)
Last Updated 6/18/2023
This is the beginning of a new era to reveal how credit card processing companies are adding hidden fees, downgrading interchange rates, and implementing surcharges to charge businesses more than they should be.
This credit card processing rate increase series will also showcase card brand changes (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express) that occur throughout the year. It’s strictly educational and comes from Merchant Cost Consulting’s auditing experiences every month of what we see happening in the credit card processing industry.
We’re always keeping an eye out for rate increases and important notices from major payment processors. Here’s a look at the latest notices, fee increases, and updates from TSYS (Global Payments):
New TSYS PCI Compliance Fee – Effective July 2023
Effective July 1, 2023, TSYS is increasing its PCI non-compliance fee to $94.95 per month.
This fee will be assessed monthly to all merchants who have not submitted their PCI DSS Compliance Validation, and will continue being charged until the compliance validation has been completed.
PCI DSS Validation is not required to use TSYS for payment processing. However, merchants are required to confirm their PCI DSS status.
TSYS (Global Payments) Rate Increase Effective December 1, 2022
As of 12/1/2022, TSYS (Global Payments) is increasing the processing rate for credit card and signature debit card transactions by 40 BPS (0.0040). This applies to all Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover transactions.
The processing rate per authorization is also increasing by $0.20.
TSYS (Global Payments) is also increasing qualified base discount rates by 0.20%. A $0.10 transaction network access fee is being added to all authorized transactions, including returns and declines.
Non-qualified surcharge processing fees are increasing by 0.70%. For merchants who are not currently being assessed a non-qualified surcharge processing fee, one will be added to your statement at 0.70%.
For access to card brand services, merchants using TSYS (Global Payments) will be assed a 0.10% fee.
TSYS (Global Payments) July 2022 Updates
Mastercard is rolling out a “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) program. This allows cardholders to split the cost of a purchase into equal installments with the issuing bank.
Merchants will be paid in full according to the existing settlement agreement and funding schedule. No action is required from merchants. They will automatically be enrolled in the program.
TSYS (Global Payments) notified merchants of this update. The notice has an opt-out clause. Based on this terminology, it sounds like TSYS is going to charge a fee to merchants for the auto-enrollment.
Merchants currently using TSYS for credit card processing should keep an eye on their statements for this Mastercard BNPL fee.
Additional Reading: Mastercard Interchange Rates
Effective June 2022: TSYS (Global Payments) Updates
In a notice sent to merchants, TSYS (Global Payments) notified customers of changes to PIN debit networks that could impact costs. Merchants may see new fees or notice an increase in:
- Card network fees
- Assessment rates
- Switch fees
- Activity fees
- Settlement funding fees
- PCI non-compliance fees
- Network security fees
- Early termination fee
TSYS (Global Payments) is reminding merchants to carefully review statements to make sure they’re aware of these changes.
TSYS Rate Increases Effective April 2022
TSYS (Global Payments) notified its customers on February 2022 statements about upcoming changes. Here’s a summary of that notice:
- Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and Discover are modifying interchange structures and introducing new interchange categories effective April 2022. Details of these changes and fee updates will be addressed on March 2022 statements.
- The rate for all non-EMV assessment fees is increasing from 0.65% to 1% effective 4/1/22. This applies to all non-EMV transactions for Visa, Amex, Mastercard, and Discover.
- The new non-EMV assessment fee does not apply to fallback transactions, contactless payments, or CNP transactions.
- A $25 per month fee will continue to be assessed for merchants with more 10% non-EMV transactions in a calendar month.
TSYS Rate Increases Effective January 2022
According to a notice from TSYS (Global Payments), the following changes are going into effect in January 2022:
- Mastercard is increasing fees for the TPE (Transaction Processing Excellence) Program for MACs (Merchant Advice Codes).
- The fee applies to transactions where a merchant acquirer submits a CNP (card-not-present) transaction request to the dual message system that gets declined with MAC values of 03 or 21, where the same card received the same decline codes (03 or 21) within the past 30 days from the same merchant.
- The new fee is billed at $0.03 per occurrence.
About TSYS Global
TSYS is a global player in the payment processing space, providing solutions for financial institutions, retailers, and card issuers. The company has a presence in roughly 80 countries, with 200 clients and 638 million accounts.
Global Payments completed its merger with TSYS in September 2019.
Acquiring solutions offered by TSYS Global include:
- Authorization and capture
- Clearing and settlement
- Reporting and analytics
- Risk and compliance
TSYS offers issuing solutions, including:
- Consumer
- Commercial
- Payment Processor for Credit and Debit Cards
- Healthcare
- Loyalty
- Licensed payment software
See all of the latest interchange rate changes and updates by visiting our complete guide to interchange.
TSYS Merchant Solutions
What is TSYS merchant solutions?
TSYS is one of the most popular merchant account providers on the market. As a credit card processor, they offer merchant accounts to a wide range of businesses. But before you set up a TSYS merchant account, you need a firm grasp of TSYS merchant solutions and how they handle merchant accounts.
Like any payment solutions provider, the terms of your contract will impact your bank account. We’ll take a closer look at TSYS Merchant Solutions and fees associated with processing credit cards below.
TSYS and TSYS ISO Hidden Fees and Rate Increases
TSYS Omaha Platform
The first we have seen of a TSYS rate increase has come from merchants being on Tsys’s Omaha platform. In laymen’s terms, this is the back end platform a Tsys account is boarded on after getting approved by underwriting.
The credit card processing fee was put into effect as of March 25th, 2020 and impacts your PCI DSS Compliance.
IF you fail to take your PCI survey and become PCI compliant, Tsys is charging you $125. This is outrageous for a Non PCI fee, however we have been seeing this fee increase substantially throughout the industry.
Our assumption is that Tsys is migrating from its old partner, Trustwave, who previously help merchants become compliant, and is now shifting over to ControlScan for this support.
TSYS Cayan
For merchants who are/were with Cayan, who was acquired by Tsys, we have seen credit card processing rate increases in their “base rate.”
In this specific example below, the merchant was previously on a base rate of 0.05% but shortly after had this fee increased to the 0.32% you see below.
We also see that in this month that TSYS/Cayan has charged their merchants the infamous PCI Fee of $99.50:
Updating your credit card machine is one of many ways to avoid this charge.
TSYS Merchant Solutions Health Services
Below we have seen merchants within the health care sector, supported by Tsys Health Services, obtain a “surcharge” on their credit card processing statements.
These surcharges can vary greatly, as we have seen up to a 1.50% additional surcharge and as low as 0.10% like you see below. It is very important to note this as what you may be thinking is your credit card processing rate, may actually be something else as these surcharges can drastically affect a merchant’s bottom line.
How it works: Tsys charges you a base rate, which is subjective to what the sales representative of Tsys can offer. After, they include an additional surcharge fee that is on top of the original base rate that was offered.
Be aware of these things when reviewing merchant statements as this should be a task done monthly to ensure your pricing is where it should be.
Below is another example of TSYS Health adding surcharges to the interchange pass through fees:
TSYS Merchant Solutions Acquired by Global Payments
If you are using TSYS Merchant Solutions, you will soon be using Global Payments (one of the largest credit card processors in the world). Watch out for hidden fees, downgrades, surcharging, and early termination fees due to the merger of these two credit card processing services!
The financial-technology merger frenzy continued on Tuesday, as Global Payments Inc. officially announced a $21.5 billion all-stock deal for Total System Services Inc.
The deal is the third such combination to be announced in the payments industry this year that is focused on creating a two-party platform that can serve both financial institutions and merchants. Fiserv Inc. announced plans to acquire First Data Corp. in January, while Fidelity National Information Services Inc. said it planned to combine with Worldpay Inc. in March.
Final Thoughts on TSYS Merchant Solutions
Regardless of the payment process a merchant uses to accept credit cards, there are always credit card merchant fees that can be alleviated, reduced, or refunded. TSYS Merchant Solutions is no exception to this.
Always examine your merchant account agreement before you start accepting credit card payments. You might find things in there like an early termination fee or other hidden charges that will impact your bank account.
Overall, TSYS merchant accounts are solid. Its credit card processing department for merchant accounts get the job done. You can always discuss TSYS Merchant Solutions and acquiring solutions with their customer service reps too.
You can learn more about payment processing, merchant services, and how credit card processing rates and fee work leveraging our Credit Card Processing Complete Guide.
Take the time to understand your statements, your pricing, and the credit card processing company you are dealing with to get a true understanding of what to look out for.
I just did an audit on my checking account that for 2020. We’re a small business with normally only one charge per month of $251 for the U.S.P.S. We started with Merchant Services, then CAYAN, then TSYS. We have never received a monthly statement email or snail mail – NEVER.
We were never informed about this PCI charge scam and a “CD:Suite” charge. Nor were we informed about PCI “compliance”.
From what I can see they scammed us for about $2,400. I’ve heard of others that were scammed for a lot more.
I am now in PCI compliance which amounts to answering some ridiculous common sense questions. I’m now going back to TSYS and try to get a refund and close my account. They charged me $181 in March and I didn’t use their system to process any charges. I have since switched to Square as this fits my small business better.
If they don’t refund my funds they stole I will try to find a legal route.
Description Total
1 VS-VS FANF CNP 1.06
Non Receipt of PCI Validation 125.00
CE: Suite (Intelligence) S/MB 54.95
Thanks for your feedback Bruce! It is not uncommon for this to occur for small businesses who are using TSYS. There are many fees that are not fully disclosed to business owners when signing up with a payment processor (as you are experiencing now). If your business is processing less than $10,000 UDS per month, Square is definitely the right option for you!