Small Businesses Dissatisfied With Credit Card Processors: Survey

A new survey shows small businesses are dissatisfied with their credit card processing arrangements. Transparent Financial Services (TransFS), operator of the only comparison shopping website for business financial services, today released the results of a survey that indicates many small businesses have little trust or loyalty to their credit card processor (also known as a merchant account provider). Major findings of the survey include:

• 33% of respondents say they have “Very Little” loyalty to their credit card processor / merchant account provider
• 25% reported having “Little” loyalty, while 26% reporting “Some”
• Only 16% report having “Lots” of loyalty to their credit card processor 40% would require less than $50 / month savings to switch to another processor / merchant account provider

The respondents of the survey indicated as reasons for their dissatisfaction: “hidden costs and fees,” “high costs,” “poor customer service” and “unforeseen rate increases.”

The survey was drawn from a MarketTools / Zoomerang random sample of small business owners and was completed by 283 respondents. Respondents included a wide sample of small businesses, including those ranging in size from 1 to 40 employees, those focused on selling to consumers as well as those selling to other businesses, and those providing products and services on the internet as well as those providing products and services in person and multi-channel businesses.

Sean Harper, Co-Founder, Transparent Financial Services, commented, “It’s not surprising that small businesses are not very loyal to their credit card processors because most business owners perceive credit card processing as a commodity. Additionally, there is a lot of confusion over the pricing, which can be frustrating.”

About Transparent Financial Services
Transparent Financial Services (TransFS) is a Financial Services Comparison Shopping business that uses technology to help business owners select the best credit card processing, business insurance, business credit cards and business banking providers. TransFS evens the playing field for small business owners using instant reverse auctions to quickly negotiate better deals, automated bill analysis software to identify unnecessary or undisclosed fees, and an online ratings and reputation system to determine the highest quality service providers. Based in Chicago, IL, TransFS can be found at http://transfs.com and the free credit card processing calculator is available at http://transfs.com/credit-card-processing-calculator.