FeeVerify for issuing banks
An issuer's card economics run two ways: scheme and processor fees go out, and interchange and scheme incentives come in. FeeVerify re-costs your scheme and processor billing line by line against your agreements and checks every cleared transaction for the interchange you should earn, so nothing you are owed goes uncollected, this month or next.
What goes out, what comes in, and where it leaks
Money goes out to Visa and Mastercard, which bill an issuer hundreds of fee codes, and to a card processor that bills per account and per transaction. Money comes in as interchange on every cleared transaction, plus scheme incentives. Few issuers check either side line by line against the contracts.
The same applies to other card issuers, such as neobanks and fintech card programmes, which often add a BIN sponsor to the bill. Income is capped in many markets: interchange in the UK and EEA is limited to 0.2% of the transaction for debit cards and 0.3% for credit (Ryft, 2026). Costs keep moving, and Visa raised the base transmission fee paid by issuers from January 2025 (Payments Dive). Incentives are large: Visa's client incentives were $15.75bn in fiscal 2025 (Visa FY2025 10-K).
| Line | Where it leaks | How FeeVerify checks it |
|---|---|---|
| Scheme assessments, service and network fees | Wrong fee codes, volume bands not applied, fees billed after programme changes | Re-costs each line against your scheme agreement and the published fee schedules |
| Penalty and non-compliance fees | Fees charged without a matching breach, or above the schedule | Traces each fee to the rule and the activity that should have triggered it |
| Processor per-account fees | Charges on inactive or closed accounts the contract excludes | Counts the accounts each fee should apply to and compares the count with the bill |
| Processor per-transaction fees | Tiers reached and never applied, minimums charged on top of usage | Applies the contracted rates, tiers and minimums to your volumes |
| BIN sponsor fees, for programmes | Scheme cost marked up inside a bundled price | Separates each component the contract names and checks pass-through against the scheme's own rate |
| Interchange income | Downgrades and wrong product or merchant categories reducing income silently | Checks every cleared transaction for the rate you should receive |
| Scheme incentives | Volume targets met, marketing funds earned, payments missing or late | Tracks earn-back against the incentive agreement |
Sources: Ryft, embedded payment fees in Europe, 2026; Payments Dive, Visa network fee increases; Visa FY2025 10-K
Four ways FeeVerify pays for itself
FeeVerify is an independent control layer over what the schemes and your processor bill you, and over the interchange you earn. Looking back, it recovers what you were overbilled and claims what you were owed. Going forward, it keeps income and costs where your agreements put them, and gives you clear economics for the next negotiation.
Looking back: recover what you are owed
Recover scheme overcharges
Visa and Mastercard billing is broken down and re-costed line by line against your agreements and the published fee schedules. Typical findings are wrong fee codes and volume bands not applied.
Claim scheme incentives
Incentive agreements, volume and growth targets, and marketing and development funds are tracked against the contract, so value you have earned is paid.
Going forward: protect income and cost
Protect interchange
Each month's cleared transactions are checked as they land for the interchange you should earn. Downgrades and wrong product or merchant categories are flagged with their cause, so they can be fixed before they cost another month of income.
Negotiate the next agreement
Every finding links to the clause, the calculation and the source data, and your scheme and processor costs sit on one basis, ready for your next scheme incentive or processor negotiation.
You do not need to build an in-house scheme billing team. AI does the high-volume analysis, and experienced payments specialists sign off every material finding.
Proof in production, and why it transfers to issuers
FeeVerify is proven on real production data from the acquiring side of a tier-one cross-border payments business, anonymised here, across multiple markets with blended and IC++ acquiring. It has not yet run in production for an issuer. The engine transfers because scheme billing and interchange are rules-driven in the same way as acquirer pricing.
Each fee and each interchange rate follows from a schedule and an agreement, so FeeVerify extracts the rules and re-costs the lines against them, exactly as it did for that business.
We are offering the issuer diagnostic as a design-partner pilot: you get the diagnostic on your own scheme billing, and your team helps shape the issuer checks. Figures are from an anonymised engagement; the client is not named. The proof page has the method.
Getting started
You start with a 30-day diagnostic on one scheme and one portfolio, using one month of your own data, and you see verified recoveries before any recurring fee. The first call agrees which scheme and portfolio to scope, who owns the scheme relationship, and any data-sharing approvals the bank needs.
Share your data
Your scheme agreements and fee schedules, your incentive and processor agreements, and one month of scheme billing and clearing files.
30-day diagnostic
Every fee line 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 value you accept, with no ongoing commitment. Optional continuous assurance then checks each new month as it lands.
The scheme relationship usually sits with Cards or Payments, working with Finance, so it helps to have both on the first call. Pilot terms are agreed in the contract.
Questions issuers ask
Your production proof is from acquiring. Why would it work for an issuer?
The production engagement was on the acquiring side of a cross-border payments business, and we say so plainly. What it proved is the engine: rules extracted from contracts, every line re-costed against them, and each variance traced to a clause. Scheme billing, interchange and incentive agreements are rules-driven in the same way, so the method carries over. That is why we offer the first issuer diagnostic as a design-partner pilot.
How do we know if our interchange income is short?
Check every cleared transaction against the rate it should have earned. Interchange depends on the card product, the merchant category, the region and the data sent with the transaction, so a downgrade or a wrong category lowers income without any line on an invoice showing it. FeeVerify recalculates the expected interchange for each transaction and flags the ones that fell short, with the reason.
Are we being paid the right scheme incentives?
Scheme incentives depend on volume thresholds and the terms of each business agreement, according to Mastercard's FY2025 annual report. An incentive earned and not paid is a discrepancy like any overcharge. FeeVerify tracks volume and growth targets, marketing and development funds and signing incentives against your agreement, and flags a payment that is missing or late.
Why are our network fees rising faster than our transactions?
Network fees can rise on flat volumes because the schemes change their fees, per-account charges grow with the card base even when cards go unused, and optional services stay switched on after a programme changes. FeeVerify recalculates each fee from the rules and your data, so a rise splits into the part the contract explains and the part it does not.
We are a neobank on a BIN sponsor. Does this apply to us?
Yes. BIN sponsors typically charge a setup fee, a monthly minimum and per-transaction charges that bundle scheme assessments, processor fees and the sponsor's margin (Codego). Because the scheme cost sits inside the bundle, a programme rarely sees it. FeeVerify separates each component the contract names and checks your interchange income the same way it would for a bank.
Our scheme agreement is confidential. Can we still take part?
Yes. Contracts and data stay in an environment only you can see, every agent action is logged, and client data is never used to train a model. Your lawyers can review the terms before anything is shared, and the governance page answers the usual confidentiality and procurement questions. If the scheme agreement cannot be shared at first, the diagnostic can start with the processor agreement and the published fee schedules.
Related reading
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.