A publicly traded multi-billion-dollar media conglomerate and holding company looking to save on costs identified credit card acceptance fees as a major expense. Surcharging was targeted as a potential solution to the problem. But, after conducting research with their payment processor, what was seemingly the most straightforward solution – surcharging through their processor – was non-compliant and too expensive to justify. InterPayments offered a higher-value solution with full compliance guaranteed with indemnification to reduce risk. The company selected InterPayments, and together they drove millions of dollars in annual savings with credit card fee recovery at minimal additional risk.
Results
Following a one-time integration with InterPayments, the company started delivering meaningful daily savings. In 2023, the company surcharged $110 million in transactions and received a return of $2.6M – a savings of at least 79% on the fees these transactions incurred. But the savings for the company exceeded this number as the segment of customers being surcharged always had the option to move to a lower-cost payment option like debit or ACH. Many of their customers appreciated having the choice and went with a lower-cost option, allowing the company to avoid even more credit card fees.
About the Company
Industry: Broadcasting and Digital Media Conglomerate/Holding Company
Company Size: Enterprise (5,000+ employees, $3.5B+ annual revenue)
Location: Headquartered in the United States, with sales globally
Background: A major provider of media across multiple traditional and digital channels
Challenges
Recover fees on credit card payments – The company’s C-suite had a set goal to get in front of a potential recession by aggressively reducing costs. They saw the recovery of credit card payment fees via surcharging as a potential solution that would have an immediate impact. ACH and debit payments would not be surcharged, providing a way for customers to avoid the fee entirely.
Minimize cost quickly – The company was publicly traded and had already made a public commitment to reducing avoidable costs as quickly as possible. Surcharging delivers continuous returns after its implementation, with the savings beginning on the first day of its implementation . This made it a great answer to the promise that was made to shareholders.
Minimize risk – As a holding company juggling risk across many businesses, eliminating risk from new projects was always the highest priority. The surcharging effort was no different. Most of the risk of surcharging comes from compliance – following rules and regulations created by 67 different bodies, each of which can take punitive action in the form of fines that start at $5,000. Like most companies, they did not have in-house expertise in this field.
The Solution
After researching several potential partners, InterPayments rose to the top thanks to its value proposition and low-risk profile. This combination of characteristics is rare – for example, the surcharging solution offered by the company’s existing processor did not account for state and provincial law. When the processor told the company to handle that part themselves, they lost faith in their processor’s ability to handle surcharging and looked to InterPayments. InterPayments handles state and provincial law automatically on every transaction, while also offering compliance indemnification to minimize risk to the company.
InterPayments was integrated directly into the company’s existing payment portal via API technology, eliminating the need for an expensive replacement of payment partners. This further minimized process risk and shortened the time to completion.
Interested in using InterPayments with your existing payment technology? Talk to us today.