Abstract: A merchant services provider may implement a payment processing system for processing card-based transactions on behalf of merchants. The merchant services provider may have relationships with multiple acquiring banks, and may use different acquiring banks for different transactions. The payment processing system electronically solicits bids from the multiple acquiring banks for processing a group of future purchase transactions, wherein the group is specified as a quantity of transactions having certain attributes. The acquiring banks provide respective bids that specify fee amounts for processing the group of transactions. The payment processing system selects a winning acquirer, and subsequently uses the winning acquirer for processing transactions having the specified attributes.

Abstract: A payment processing system is configured to support purchase transactions generated by merchant point-of-sale (POS) devices. Information regarding the purchase transactions is archived and periodically analyzed using machine learning to create a predictive model relating transaction attributes to bank interchange fees. The predictive model is then used to estimate interchange fees that are later passed on to merchants. This allows more accurate settlement with merchants in situations where reports regarding actual interchange fees are not yet available.