Banks have become known as a necessary evil in our society, despite providing a valuable services.
Mortgages, savings accounts, granting loans, and general management of finances. You can bundle multiple products through your bank and usually get a good rate for doing so.
While it may work for some, bundling up your processing rates with a bank does not carry the same benefits for merchants.
Why?
Banks do not make their living off of processing rates, so it’s not in their interest to excel at providing processing services. Payments processing is not the core competency of any bank.
Banks primarily make money off of interest and fees. They may have adapted processing for merchants as an umbrella service.
Is a processor a better choice?
Almost always, yes.
We’ll go over processors in another blog, but back to banks.
Those low rates are deceiving
Chances are banks will offer processing rates that are either equal or just a fraction higher than a processor would offer. It may seem worth it to go with the familiar bank for just a fraction higher rate, but that rate will not stay constant.
Many clients have come to BNG Holdings because their bank would constantly raise their rate for no clear reason. Most banks and financials institutions raise merchant rates after doing business with your company for some time.
They’re not as local as you think
The other bank flaw is they are not as personal as you think.
You may have Jeff at your local bank to handle your mortgage, and who also offers services like payments processing, but there’s a 99% chance that Jeff will not be handling your processing rates for your small business.
Banks will by in large, outsource processing to an independent credit card processor rather than handle it themselves.
Jeff may have sold you on them, but he’ll likely give you a number to an outsourced processor to answer your questions. Even smaller banks will outsource your small business’s credit card processing.
Often times, banks will have contracts with larger financial firms to provide credit cards services.
The bottom line: you’re not getting that close and personal service you were expecting.
Contracts
Certain times in life, it’s important to make contracts. Signing up for a processing service from your bank, is not one them.
Contracts with processing rates are almost never beneficial for merchants, but huge cash cows for credit card processors.
We’ll use science to explain.
The desired relationship should be symbiotic, where both participants in the relationship (merchant and processor provider) are benefitting from the “contract”.
The fact is the majority of contracted relationships between merchants and processors is a parasitic one, where one party benefits often causing harm to the other.
The point is, if you want what’s business you’ll shy away from the enticing offers a bank will make you. They’re not familiar, their rates will always increase, and they’ll make you sign detrimental contracts.
Find someone who’s worked in the industry of processing that will understand your businesses needs, rather than a bloated institution stretching themselves thin.
Looking for a non parasitic credit card processor?
Take a look at our services , and see what others have said.
If you’d like to learn more about what our company can do for your business, or would like a free consultation, contact us here .