Credit Card Fees

There are many costs to accepting credit cards. Fees include, but may not be limited to:

PCI Compliance Fees

There can be one or more fees related to PCI compliance for a merchant. For example:

• $90/year for each self-assessment questionnaire (“SAQ”). This is a pass-through fee assessed by the Office of the Controller to departments via a journal on an annual basis. A merchant can have more than one SAQ, depending on how many merchant accounts and processing environments are supported (e.g., e-commerce and retail);
• $1,000 to $3,000 for a QSA Facilitated SAQ, if required due to an unusual or complex processing environment, or at a department’s request;
• $1,000 to $10,000+ for external/internal network scans and penetration testing, depending on the complexity of the processing environment (SAQ-C and -D, primarily);
• $8,000+ for a QSA examination of a non-validated P2PE environment (i.e., not listed as a validated solution on the PCI SSC website).

Credit Card Acceptance Fees

For most UCSB merchants, these fees total approximately 2-2.5% of the transaction, and are identified in the monthly statement that comes from Bank of America merchant services. Certain types of merchants may be subject to higher fees, depending upon how they are classified by the Acquiring Bank.

• Processor Fee: Charged and collected by Bank of America
• Access & Assessments: Collected by Bank of America and forwarded to VISA and Mastercard
• Interchange: Collected by Bank of America and forwarded to the bank that issued the credit card

Gateway Fee

If applicable (e.g., for e-commerce transactions), these additional fees are charged by the Gateway used to process the transaction. They are included on the monthly bank statement from Bank of America, and are identified on the financial journal as part of the total fees.

• Authorize.net: e-commerce account is $10.00/month and $.03/transaction
• Bluefin Payment Systems: e-commerce transactions are $.15 each, with no monthly fee

Credit Card Terminal Pricing (updated 8/25/2023)

*Other terminals may be available for specific supplier solutions. Bluefin terminals are each subject to a one-time encryption “key injection” fee of $35.00, plus shipping costs, and $25/mo P2PE “device management” fee.