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Interchange fees

nounid 2966·updated Aug 30, 2026
verified· unreviewed

Fees paid by one financial institution to another to cover handling costs and credit risk in a financial institution card transaction. Interchange fees generally flow toward the institution funding the transaction and assuming the risk. In a credit card transaction, the interchange fee is paid by the merchant acquirer accepting the merchant's sales draft to the card-issuing institution, which, in turn, passes the fee to its merchants. In EFT/POS transactions, interchange flows in the opposite direction: the card-issuing institution (or customer) pays the fee to the terminal-owning institution. When a transaction is an off-line debit sale, the card-issuing institution collects an interchange fee from the merchant, rather than from the customer, unlike in an EFT/POS transaction, where the customer pays the interchange fee. Interchange revenue is derived from fees set by the card associations. Depending on the card association, fees can range from 1% to 3% of the value of the transaction. Interchange revenue is recognized as a card issuer's second largest revenue line item.

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Classifications

Entity Type

Requirement0%rule-basedmulti_axis_classifier_low_confidence.v1

Sensitivity

Regulated85%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5

Information Class

90%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5

Variants

possessive
Interchange fees's
pluralpossessive
Interchange feeses'

Framework definitions

Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) IT Examination Handbook Infobase, Glossary1 senseview framework →
§1
Fees paid by one financial institution to another to cover handling costs and credit risk in a financial institution card transaction. Interchange fees generally flow toward the institution funding the transaction and assuming the risk. In a credit card transaction, the interchange fee is paid by the merchant acquirer accepting the merchant's sales draft to the card-issuing institution, which, in turn, passes the fee to its merchants. In EFT/POS transactions, interchange flows in the opposite direction: the card-issuing institution (or customer) pays the fee to the terminal-owning institution. When a transaction is an off-line debit sale, the card-issuing institution collects an interchange fee from the merchant, rather than from the customer, unlike in an EFT/POS transaction, where the customer pays the interchange fee. Interchange revenue is derived from fees set by the card associations. Depending on the card association, fees can range from 1% to 3% of the value of the transaction. Interchange revenue is recognized as a card issuer's second largest revenue line item.
Legacy lexicon import1 senseview framework →
§1 · legacy_primary
Fees paid by one financial institution to another to cover handling costs and credit risk in a financial institution card transaction. Interchange fees generally flow toward the institution funding the transaction and assuming the risk. In a credit card transaction, the interchange fee is paid by the merchant acquirer accepting the merchant's sales draft to the card-issuing institution, which, in turn, passes the fee to its merchants. In EFT/POS transactions, interchange flows in the opposite direction: the card-issuing institution (or customer) pays the fee to the terminal-owning institution. When a transaction is an off-line debit sale, the card-issuing institution collects an interchange fee from the merchant, rather than from the customer, unlike in an EFT/POS transaction, where the customer pays the interchange fee. Interchange revenue is derived from fees set by the card associations. Depending on the card association, fees can range from 1% to 3% of the value of the transaction. Interchange revenue is recognized as a card issuer's second largest revenue line item.
DR-088 backfill from the noun definition column

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