Service charge, auth fee, rental, minimum. And a summary box you are owed by right.
Most statements carry a service charge, an authorisation fee, terminal rental, a minimum monthly charge and a few smaller items. Since the acquiring market remedies, the largest providers must also send you a summary box with your own prices, and run an online quotation tool, for merchants with up to £50m of card turnover.
Task before opening time. Request your summary box, then run the same numbers through two other providers’ quotation tools. Bring all three to the renewal conversation.
| Line on the statement | Also called | What it is | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service charge | MSC, merchant service charge | interchange, scheme fees and margin, added up | whether it is ever split |
| Authorisation fee | auth fee, transaction fee | a fixed amount per transaction | your transaction count |
| Terminal rental | equipment rental | often a separate agreement | the end date of the term |
| Minimum monthly service charge | MMSC, minimum billing | a top-up to a floor in quiet months | what January costs you |
| PCI fee | PCI DSS charge | the card security compliance programme | that it is not a non-compliance penalty |
| Chargeback fee | dispute fee | a charge per dispute | how many you had last year |
| Non-UK and commercial cards | cross-border, corporate | cards outside the consumer caps | their share of turnover |
Example figures. A café takes £12,000 a month across 1,500 payments averaging £8. An authorisation fee of 3p is £45 a month, 0.375% of turnover, before any percentage is charged.
A furniture shop with the same turnover across 100 payments pays £3 for the same fee. The line is identical on both statements and means something completely different. Always read it against your transaction count, never against your turnover.
A bakery in York noticed its card charges rose in January while its takings fell. The statement showed why: a minimum monthly service charge topped the bill up to a floor in a quiet month.
Divided by January’s smaller turnover, the effective rate jumped. The bakery is invented; the minimum charge that bites hardest in the quietest month is on a lot of real statements.