FeeVerify for acquiring banks
An acquiring bank's margin is the gap between two bills: what the schemes and your processor charge you, and what you charge merchants. It can leak at either end. FeeVerify re-costs both against your agreements and merchant pricing, so cost errors are claimed back, merchant billing gaps are closed, and both ends stay right as costs change.
Where does acquiring margin leak?
On the cost side, margin leaks through scheme fee errors, processor billing errors where processing is outsourced, and downgrades that push interchange cost up. On the revenue side, it leaks through scheme fee increases never passed on, merchants on the wrong IC++ or blended plan, and contractual fees that are never billed.
The cost side has grown fastest. The UK Payment Systems Regulator found that Mastercard and Visa raised core scheme and processing fees to acquirers by more than 25% in real terms between 2017 and 2023 (PSR final report, March 2025). It also concluded that the schemes do not give acquirers clear and detailed enough information about their fees (PSR PS26/1, July 2026). Each change that lands upstream has to reach merchant pricing too, or the bank absorbs it.
| Side | Where it leaks | How FeeVerify checks it |
|---|---|---|
| Cost: scheme fees | Wrong region, product or card type; billed twice; behavioural fees never challenged | Re-costs scheme invoices against your agreements and the published schedules |
| Cost: processor fees | Rates, tiers and minimums applied differently from the contract | Applies the contracted terms to your volumes and compares the result with the invoice |
| Cost: downgrades | Transactions clearing at a higher interchange tier | Traces each one to missing data, late settlement or terminal configuration |
| Revenue: scheme fee pass-through | Scheme and interchange changes not reflected in merchant pricing | Checks each change against the merchant pricing it should have moved |
| Revenue: merchant price plans | Merchants on the wrong IC++ or blended plan | Re-costs merchant billing against each merchant contract |
| Revenue: contractual fees | Fees in the merchant contract that are never charged | Lists each billable fee the contract allows and checks it was billed |
Sources: PSR market review into card scheme and processing fees, final report, March 2025; PSR PS26/1, final decision, July 2026
Four ways FeeVerify pays for itself
FeeVerify is an independent control layer between what the schemes and your processor bill you and what you bill merchants. Looking back, it recovers scheme overcharges and finds merchant revenue that leaked. Going forward, it keeps merchant pricing in step with cost and gives you clear economics for pricing and negotiation.
Looking back: recover what has leaked
Recover scheme overcharges
Scheme and processor invoices are broken down and re-costed against your agreements and the published schedules. Variances come back sourced and ready to claim.
Close merchant billing leaks
Unpassed scheme fee increases, mis-set IC++ or blended pricing and missed charges are caught. For many acquirers this is the largest number.
Going forward: keep both ends right
Cut downgrade costs
Transactions clearing at a higher interchange tier are traced to the cause: missing data elements, timing or configuration. Each cause can be fixed, so the next month's transactions qualify.
Price and defend every merchant bill
Each month, scheme and interchange changes are checked against the merchant pricing they should move, and every figure links to the clause and the source data, ready for merchant queries, auditors and regulators.
You do not need to hire scarce interchange specialists. AI does the high-volume analysis, and experienced payments specialists sign off every material finding.
Proof in production
FeeVerify is proven on a tier-one cross-border payments business, anonymised here, that runs blended and IC++ acquiring across multiple markets and had no AI-led billing reconciliation before. That is acquiring work of the kind a bank runs, and the diagnostic was delivered within 30 days of the data arriving.
For a bank, the same engine runs in both directions: scheme and processor costs in, merchant billing out.
Figures are from an anonymised engagement; the client is not named. The proof page sets out the method.
Getting started
You start with a 30-day diagnostic on one month of your own data, and you see verified recoveries before any recurring fee. A good first scope is one scheme plus your top merchant segment by volume, which tests the cost side and the revenue side together. The first call agrees that scope and the data we need.
Share your data
Your scheme and processor agreements, merchant pricing for your top segments, and one month of scheme, clearing and merchant billing files.
30-day diagnostic
Every cost and charge is re-costed. Variances are quantified and linked to the clause behind them, and the findings are reviewed with your team.
Recover and continue
FeeVerify's fee is a success fee on the recoveries, savings and revenue uplift you accept, with no ongoing commitment. Optional continuous assurance then checks each new month as it lands.
Merchant pricing and scheme costs often sit with different teams, so it helps to bring both owners to the first call, along with whoever handles the bank's data-sharing approvals. Pilot terms are agreed in the contract.
Questions acquiring banks ask
How do we find scheme fee increases we never passed on to merchants?
Compare each scheme and interchange change with the merchant pricing it should have moved. FeeVerify re-costs your scheme bill and your merchant billing from the same transactions, so a cost that rose upstream while the merchant price stayed flat shows up as a variance, with the merchant contract clause that allows the pass-through. The same check catches merchants on the wrong IC++ or blended plan.
Why do our transactions downgrade, and can we fix it?
A transaction downgrades when it clears at a higher interchange tier than it could have qualified for. The usual causes are missing data elements, late settlement and terminal configuration. FeeVerify traces each downgraded transaction to one of those causes, so the fix is a change to data, timing or set-up. Merchants also ask about downgrades, so the finding is useful on both sides.
How do we recover scheme billing errors?
Start with evidence the scheme can check: the fee, the rule it breaks, the transactions affected and the amount. Acquirers told the Reserve Bank of Australia that schemes "did not proactively reimburse" billing errors and that investigating them took time and resource (RBA, 2025). FeeVerify's findings carry that evidence, signed off by a payments specialist, for a claim or a renegotiation.
How do we defend merchant pricing to auditors and regulators?
Give them a trail they can follow without you in the room. Each FeeVerify figure links to the merchant or scheme clause, the transactions and the calculation, and names the specialist who signed it off. A merchant query, an audit file or a regulator request can cite the finding, and anyone reviewing it can trace the number to its source. The governance page covers logging and sign-off.
What do the UK remedies change for acquirers?
The Payment Systems Regulator's pricing governance directions apply from November 2026, and from July 2027 Visa and Mastercard must give UK acquirers the fee logic needed to reconcile billed fees to the transactions behind them (PSR PS26/1). That data still needs checking against the bank's own agreements and merchant contracts. The PSR remedies explainer sets out the dates.
Is it safe to give an AI tool our scheme and merchant contracts?
FeeVerify's agents read contracts and re-cost transactions inside an environment only your organisation can see. Client data is never used to train a model and every agent action is logged. Payments specialists steer the work and sign off each material finding before anyone acts on it. The governance page answers the usual third-party risk questions one by one.
Related reading
Sources: RBA summary of submissions, transparency of wholesale fees, 2025; PSR PS26/1, final decision, July 2026
Start with one month of your own data.
A pilot begins with the agreements that protect both sides, then your contracts and one month of settlement data, scoped with a payments specialist on the first call. The 30-day diagnostic re-costs every transaction against them and shows each variance with its clause, before any recurring fee.