What you need to know
American Express Opt Blue
and B2B Merchant Services
How to process American Express cards cost effectively
American Express OptBlue
One B2B merchant service provider contract. One merchant statement all brands. New affordable price points. Seamless integration with Visa, MasterCard, and Discover infrastructure.
Unlike other card brands and B2B merchant accounts, American Express interchange rates increase with ticket or transaction size. Category at set up is crucial.
Categories
American Express groups merchants into specific categories such as health, retail or B2B wholesale. Each category has 3 distinct interchange pricing tiers based on transaction or ticket amounts.
B2B Merchant Set up
XBS identifies B2B merchants at set up for access to the American Express Opt Blue wholesale category pricing tier. This is important as the wholesale tiers are broader to accommodate higher ticket transactions at lower costs.
American Express
Retail OptBlue- <$75 1.60% + .10
- <$1000 1.95% + .10
- >$1000 $2.40 + .10
American Express
B2B Wholesale OptBlue- <$400 1.55% + .10
- <$7500 1.80% + .10
- >$7500 2.25% + .10
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
“SUCCESS IS A SCIENCE; IF YOU HAVE THE CONDITIONS, YOU GET THE RESULT”
– OSCAR WILDE
Frequently Asked Questions about accepting American Express
What’s different about American Express Cards and why you should accept them
How is American express different?
American Express is it’s own brand and closed loop financial network. Every month charges must be paid in full so they do not collect/earn interest on unpaid balances as with Visa or MasterCard. American Express has a unique pricing structure/interchange rate for card acceptance.
why should i bother with american express?
Merchants should embrace all payments and customer preference at the point of sale and direct focus to efficient payment processing rather than limiting your customers preferred payment methods. American Express customers including businesses are loyal to the card because of it’s flexible and dynamic rewards program. American Express cardmembers spend markedly more annually, and have substantially higher average transaction sizes.
Can I get level 3 payment processing rates for American Express?
American Express does not offer reduced interchange rates for passing level 2 or level 3 credit card data with the transaction.
Are there any additional fees?
Similar to assessments with other card brands, Amex charges a .15% network fee on all transactions and also has a CNP (card not present) transaction fee of .30%.
How can I ensure I am set up as b2b merchant?
American Express is just one very small piece of a B2B merchant account that should be streamlined for cost efficiencies. The best way to ensure cost effective across the board B2B payment processing is to work with a payments professional in the B2B marketplace.
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