Scheme fees

Fees charged by card networks (schemes) on top of interchange for using their rails, often blended into provider pricing.

When this matters

You are seeing cost increases tied to scheme rule changes.
You are evaluating domestic vs international routing options.
You are deciding whether to enable certain cross-border use cases.

Operator tips

Ask providers how scheme changes flow through to your pricing and notice period.
Model the impact of cross-border vs local acquiring on scheme-related charges.
Factor non-fee scheme rules (e.g., chargeback thresholds) into your operating model.

How to use this term

Use this definition when you are aligning stakeholders across product, engineering, finance, and operations. Shared vocabulary makes it much easier to argue about tradeoffs without talking past each other.

For deeper context, pair this term with the free assessment and providers/methods directories. They give you a concrete view of how concepts show up in real stacks.