Posted By: ComplianceisOK
Visa and change in ISA fee - 02/27/08 04:26 PM
I recently received information from our debit card processor about Visa changing how the ISA (International Service Assessment) fee will be handled. Has anyone seen any other information? They mentioned an effective date of April 2008.
Posted By: CU512
Re: Visa and change in ISA fee - 03/08/08 05:48 PM
ISA fees for foreign transactions done in a single currency will be 0.8% effective in April. The fee of 1% for multi-currency transactions will not be changing.
Single currency would be if you were in a foreign country and transacted a purchase with your card in dollars. When I was on my honeymoon in Aruba last year, a lot of the fast food places ran transactions in dollars...so I was never charged a fee for those. That will change in April.
As an institution, you can choose to absorb those new fees and not pass them through to the customer. If you choose this route, I believe there would not be a disclosure issue, but I'm not 100% on that.
Passing the fee along to the customer will require an update to the disclosure and some sort of mailed notification. Consult your legal counsel as to how to proceed. You'll also have to consult your in-house software host/vendor in order to set up a new fee table so that your debit cardholders are charged correctly.