MasterCard Announces New Merchant Location Fee

MasterCard announced a new assessment fee that will be billed per business location that accepts its cards.

MasterCard’s Merchant Location Fee will be charged to Merchant Account Providers for 2016 onward. Providers will pass the fee onto their customers (that’s you).

Though this $15 fee is scheduled to be billed annually, providers may choose to bill it monthly or quarterly instead. Because the fee is determined by MasterCard, it should never exceed the set amount. If you are charged more than $15 annually for the MasterCard Merchant Location Fee, your provider is practicing unethical billing.

The following information is for current PayJunction customers.

PayJunction Passes on the MasterCard Merchant Location Fee With No Markup

We value our customer relationships and want to ensure we provide honest, transparent billing statements. You will find the following message on your March 2017 merchant statements:

MasterCard® introduced an Annual Per Merchant Location Fee in 2016 that equates to $1.25 per month; the first invoice for this fee will be assessed in April of 2017 and will contain a 50% discount for the 2016 calendar year. PayJunction passes on the true cost from MasterCard® and does not mark up this fee. The MasterCard® Per Location Fee for 2016 through March 2017 will appear on your April statement as a one time $11.25 MasterCard® Annual Fee and a monthly MasterCard® Per Location Fee of $1.25. Please refer to MasterCard's website and PayJunction's blog for more information.

For the first year (2016), MasterCard is discounting the fee by 50 percent, so a fee of $7.50 will be charged. PayJunction will also charge a $1.25 monthly fee for previous billing periods (January, February and March) in 2017. You can anticipate the following fee details on your April 2017 statement:

• MC ANNUAL FEE = $11.25
• MC PER LOCATION FEE = $1.25

Moving forward, the MasterCard Merchant Location Fee will be charged at $1.25 per month. If you hold multiple merchant accounts with PayJunction, you can anticipate the MasterCard Merchant Location Fee on each set of statements you receive.

We thank you for your continued business!