To accept bank/credit cards for the payment for products, events, workshops, courses, etc., a department must obtain a merchant ID through our acquirer bank (currently, Bank of America). The merchant must follow all compliance, security standards and policies established by the bank, Payment Card Industry (PCI) and the University of Arizona.
The merchant is responsible for all credit card fees, terminal, authorization gateway, and compliance charges associated with acceptance of bank/credit cards. The bank/credit rates (interchange) are based on the type of card (AMEX, MC/Visa or Discover) utilized for the transaction.
- MasterCard, Visa, and Discover interchange rates are based on the type of credit card used, i.e., government, business purchasing card, international, rewards.
- American Express has an established flat rate for the University.
A merchant must accept MasterCard, Visa, and Discover. Accepting American Express is optional.
When pricing goods and services, it is good practice to include:
- 3% for cost of acceptance of debit/credit cards
- All applicable University charges such as the current administrative service charges (Policy 6.17 Administrative Service Charge Policy)
- Any applicable sales tax
Fees and costs are tied to the type of acceptance method (e.g., e-commerce, terminal) and credit card (e.g., Visa/MC, Discover, AMEX, government, business, reward, etc.) used by the customer.
Acceptance Methods
- Point-of-Sale Desktop/Cellular Terminal: Face-to-face, mail, and phone order transactions
- E-Commerce: Collecting, processing and authorizing credit card transactions through an authorization gateway
- Third party vendors who control and maintain the e-commerce process on behalf of the department (e.g., hosted shopping carts and applications)
Establishing a Merchant Account
Please review FSM Policy 8.14 - Merchant Acceptance.
To establish a merchant account, contact us at FNSV-Banking-And-Merchant-Services@arizona.edu to request an application and initiate the process. Let us know if you have any questions or need more information.