Your Processor Said It Was Visa. It Wasn’t.
The notice showed up in the footer of her April statement. Three sentences. Something about card brand changes affecting interchange, assessment rates, and industry classifications. She assumed it was Visa and Mastercard doing what they do twice a year. She did not read it closely. She did not compare it to last month. She moved on.
Her payment processor rate increase had already gone into effect. She would not notice it for another ninety days, when her effective rate had quietly climbed from 2.6% to 3.1%. On $40,000 a month in volume, that is $200 extra every month. $2,400 a year. Gone — not because the card networks raised rates, but because her processor did, and used the card networks as cover.
This happens every April and every October. Here is how to tell the difference between a legitimate interchange rate increase and a processor padding their margin.
Why Payment Processor Rate Increases Happen in April and October
Visa and Mastercard adjust interchange rates twice a year — April and October. These are published, documented changes, usually small. A typical interchange rate increase moves rates by 0.01% to 0.05% on specific card categories. Your processor is required to pass legitimate network increases through to you at cost.
Processors know this calendar better than anyone. They also know that April and October are the two moments each year when merchants expect to see rate changes on their statements and are least likely to question them. So that is when processors schedule their own markup increases — piggybacking on a legitimate interchange rate increase to disguise a payment processor rate increase as something outside anyone’s control.
The result is a statement that lists real interchange changes alongside processor-invented fees, all under language like “due to card brand changes affecting your cost of card acceptance.” Most merchants read that sentence and assume everything on the page came from Visa or Mastercard. It did not. Merchants often ask “why did my processor raise my rates” and get told it was the card networks — when in most cases, it was both.
Network Increase vs. Processor Rate Increase — What to Look For
There are two separate layers in your processing bill. Interchange and assessments are set by the card networks — Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex. Your processor does not control these and cannot lower them. The processor markup is what your processor adds on top. That is the layer they control, and the layer they can raise whenever they want.
On interchange-plus pricing, these two layers appear separately on your statement. You can see exactly what went to the networks and what went to your processor. A payment processor rate increase shows up immediately — the markup line changes.
On tiered or flat-rate pricing, everything is bundled. You see one number per tier. When that number goes up, you have no way of knowing how much came from the networks and how much came from your processor pocketing extra margin. That opacity is not accidental.
Discount rate changes, basis point adjustments, new monthly fees, new per-transaction fees, or changes to “service fees” or “technology fees” — these are processor-controlled. They have nothing to do with what Visa or Mastercard announced. If these appear in a notice dated April or October, your processor is raising their margin and attributing it to the networks.
This Is Happening Right Now
Visa and Mastercard did make adjustments in April 2026. A legitimate interchange rate increase is in effect. That makes this the highest-risk moment of the year for merchants on tiered or flat-rate pricing — because the cover story is real, even when the payment processor rate increase is not.
If you received a notice in the last thirty days referencing card brand changes, pull your March statement and your April statement side by side. Calculate your effective rate on both — total fees divided by total volume. If the jump is more than 0.10%, something beyond a standard network adjustment happened. The Federal Reserve publishes average interchange data at federalreserve.gov — you can use that as a baseline to verify what actually changed at the network level.
One more thing: processors are not required to give more than 30 days notice before a payment processor rate increase. Some bury the notice in the footer of a statement. Some send a vague email. Some give no notice at all and rely on the contract language that permits rate changes. The CFPB covers merchant rights around fee disclosures at consumerfinance.gov.
How to Respond to a Payment Processor Rate Increase
If you are asking yourself “why did my processor raise my rates” after opening this month’s statement, here is the sequence that usually surfaces the answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most merchant agreements allow processors to raise rates at any time with 30 days notice. There is no legal cap on frequency. Processors who raise rates more than once per year are a red flag — the industry standard is to adjust alongside the twice-yearly network schedules, and even then only the network portion is genuinely unavoidable.
Possibly. If the increase violated the notice terms in your merchant agreement, you can request a reversal or credit. Contact your processor in writing, cite the specific terms, and reference the effective date of the increase versus the date of notice. Some processors will reverse the overage rather than escalate a dispute.
An interchange rate increase comes from the card networks — Visa, Mastercard, Discover — and applies to every processor equally. Your processor passes it through at cost and cannot negotiate it down. A processor rate increase is the processor raising their own markup on top of interchange. That portion is entirely negotiable and has nothing to do with what the card networks announced.
Processors can raise their own markup independently of any interchange rate increase. The contract language in most merchant agreements permits this with 30 days notice. If you received a notice but cannot find a corresponding network change on the Visa or Mastercard public announcements, the increase is processor-only — and negotiable.
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