Abstract: Few merchants are in a position to understand how changes to processes or procedures may alter the issuer risk and/or subsequent transaction processing costs. Merchants would prefer to be provided with estimated Interchange fees associated with a financial transaction in real-time. To provide a merchant with an estimated Interchange fee in real-time, a financial transaction request may be received from the merchant and used to determine the estimated Interchange fee. The estimated Interchange fee may then be transmitted to a merchant in real-time. The estimated Interchange fee may be representative of an actual Interchange fee associated with a financial transaction. Estimated Interchange fees may be provided as part of an authorization or settlement processing method.

Abstract: A payment processor may host account information such as an account number of a customer provided during a transaction with a point of sale of a merchant. The account information may be received by the payment processor without being stored at the point of sale. For example, the account information may be received by the payment processor via a web page that may emulate a terminal at the point of sale. The payment processor may store the account information and may establish a unique transaction identifier for the transaction. The unique identifier may be provided to the customer with a receipt and the account number may be provided to an entity that may provide payment the merchant to complete the sales transaction.