New rules, old pricing, and a deadline already on the calendar
Revised interchange and surcharging rules across Europe and North America changed what an acquirer could pass through to merchants, and the client's existing fee structure had been built under the old rules.
Some existing contracts would become unprofitable or non-compliant once the new rules took effect, but nobody could say with confidence which ones, or by how much.
The client needed defensible new price corridors, segmented by merchant type, before the effective date, along with a clear list of which contracts needed renegotiating first.
We benchmarked the market and asked merchants what they would actually pay
A fee-structure benchmark across competing acquirers established where the market was already repricing in anticipation of the new rules, and where it was not.
Interviews with merchants tested willingness to pay under the new pass-through structure directly, rather than assuming price sensitivity from the benchmark alone.
Regulatory interpretation was checked against how competing acquirers were reading the same rule, since the rule's text and its practical application were not always the same thing.
Price corridors set before the rule took effect
The output set defensible price corridors by merchant segment, grounded in both competitive benchmarking and tested willingness to pay, not in the old fee structure carried forward.
The work flagged which existing contracts required renegotiation ahead of the effective date, so the commercial team had a prioritised list rather than a rule change to react to all at once.
The client entered the new interchange regime with pricing it could defend to merchants and to regulators, set ahead of the deadline rather than in response to it.
