The cost of accepting electronic payments is rarely well understood by the organisations bearing it. Interchange, scheme fees, acquirer margins, gateway charges, currency conversion spreads and chargeback processing costs accumulate across the transaction lifecycle in ways that are obscured by consolidated billing. Authorisation rates, fraud rates and chargeback ratios further affect net economics in ways that are not always linked back to the payment stack configuration causing them. MENA Advisory works with merchants, payment institutions and fintechs to diagnose payment cost structures, improve authorisation performance and implement the technical and commercial changes that produce measurable improvement.

Acquiring Strategy & Negotiation

Acquirer agreements are typically renegotiated at renewal, but the triggers for out-of-cycle renegotiation are often missed. Significant volume growth, a sustained reduction in chargeback ratios, or expansion into new markets each represent leverage that merchants and payment institutions can use to improve pricing. We conduct an independent assessment of the current acquirer relationship — pricing benchmarked against market rates for comparable volume and risk profile, contractual terms reviewed against current standard market practice, and reserve requirements evaluated against the actual risk they purport to cover.

For merchants processing B2B transactions, Level 2 and Level 3 interchange data submission is the most commonly overlooked cost reduction mechanism. Corporate and purchasing cards attract significantly higher interchange rates unless the acquiring configuration passes the additional data fields required for enhanced interchange qualification. We identify qualification gaps and specify the technical changes required to capture the rate reduction.

Payment Gateway Selection

Gateway selection involves trade-offs between cost, authorisation performance, redundancy, geographic coverage and integration complexity that are specific to each organisation's transaction mix. A gateway optimised for European card-present transactions will not deliver the same authorisation rates for card-not-present transactions in GCC markets. We run structured gateway evaluations covering technical capability, pricing modelling against actual transaction data, integration requirements and service level terms. Where multi-gateway routing is appropriate — splitting transaction flow to optimise authorisation rates by card type or geography — we design the routing logic and specify the implementation requirements.

Fraud Management & Chargeback Reduction

Visa's standard chargeback monitoring programme threshold is 1% of transactions by count; the excessive programme threshold is 1.8%. Mastercard's equivalent thresholds under its Excessive Chargeback Programme are 1.5% (standard) and 3% (excessive). Sustained breach of these thresholds results in monthly scheme fines that escalate with duration and, ultimately, risk of acquirer termination. We analyse chargeback data by reason code, merchant category, card type and transaction channel to identify the specific causes driving elevated ratios, and develop a targeted remediation plan addressing each.

Fraud tooling assessments cover rule configuration, machine learning model calibration, and the false positive rate being imposed on legitimate transactions. An overly aggressive fraud model suppresses authorisation rates and affects revenue directly; we quantify this cost and recommend recalibration parameters where improvement is achievable without increasing fraud exposure.

Alternative Payment Methods

Consumer payment method preferences in GCC markets differ from those in Europe. Digital wallets, buy now pay later products, and domestic real-time account-to-account schemes each represent meaningful share of consumer payment activity in specific segments. We assess which alternative payment methods are relevant to a client's customer base, evaluate the integration requirements for each, and advise on the commercial terms available from APM providers. We also assess the scheme compliance implications of APM integration, including network tokenisation requirements and applicable scheme rules for digital wallet acceptance.

Cross-Border & Settlement Optimisation

Cross-border payment costs include correspondent banking charges, currency conversion spreads, and settlement timing costs that compound when settlement cycles are long. SWIFT GPI provides end-to-end tracking and has materially improved transparency, but cost optimisation requires analysis of the correspondent chain and FX execution approach. For businesses with significant cross-border transaction volumes, we model the total cost of the current settlement structure and identify where structural changes — correspondent bank rationalisation, FX netting, or use of alternative rails — would produce a net cost reduction.

Settlement lag cost modelling quantifies the working capital cost of settlement timing. For high-volume processors, a one-day improvement in settlement timing can represent a material reduction in working capital requirement.

What Clients Receive

A standard engagement produces a payment cost analysis benchmarked against market rates, an authorisation rate diagnostic with identified improvement actions, a chargeback analysis with remediation roadmap, and a prioritised action plan with estimated cost and revenue impact for each recommendation. Engagements typically run four to eight weeks. Where implementation support is required, we can provide ongoing advisory through the delivery phase.