Scheme Fee Review

Scheme Fees Are Rising. Are You Paying More Than You Should?

Visa and Mastercard scheme fees have been climbing steadily for years — and for most issuers and acquirers, the full cost is still not properly understood. Scheme invoices are among the most complex documents in payments, spanning hundreds of line items across multiple pricing manuals, ICAs, and business lines. Without specialist knowledge and dedicated analytical tools, the fees you're paying are almost certainly higher than they need to be — and the savings available are almost certainly larger than you think.

  • Scheme fee invoices routinely contain charges for services that clients don't use, didn't opt into, or were automatically enrolled in by default — and without line-by-line expertise, these go undetected and unpaid month after month, year after year

  • Non-compliance penalties and behavioural fees are frequently triggered without clients realising it, often due to sub-optimal operational setup or configuration rather than any deliberate breach — and they compound silently over time

  • The sheer complexity of scheme billing means that even well-resourced finance teams lack the specialist knowledge to identify where they are over-paying, mis-categorised, or simply not set up in the most cost-efficient way relative to industry best practice

  • Pinnacle's Scheme Fee Review typically identifies cost reduction opportunities of between 10% and 25% of total scheme fee spend — savings that are realised within months and recur every year thereafter, making the return on investment from a single engagement transformational

Our Approach

Rigorous, Fast, and Requiring Almost Nothing From You

Pinnacle's Scheme Fee Review is deliberately designed to deliver maximum insight with minimum disruption to your business. There are no lengthy onboarding processes, no drain on internal resource, and no need to build a business case before you see results. Our team of specialist consultants — many of them former practitioners from schemes, issuers, and acquirers — gets straight to work on your invoice data, applying years of accumulated pattern recognition and an extensive repository of known cost-saving opportunities to surface findings that your internal team simply wouldn't have the tools or the time to find.

Minimal client effort required. Pinnacle accesses your Visa and Mastercard invoices directly via MC Connect and Visa Access, meaning the data gathering phase requires minimal client involvement — within weeks our team has a complete picture of your scheme fee spend across every line item, ICA, and business line

Proprietary tools find what others miss. Every invoice is subjected to a rigorous line-by-line analysis using Pinnacle's fee simulator tool, cross-referencing actual charges against scheme pricing manuals to detect anomalies, billing errors, unnecessary services, and non-compliance fees that should never have been triggered

Four proven levers, every opportunity quantified. Cost saving opportunities are identified across opting out of unnecessary services, aligning with industry best practice, negotiating erroneous scheme billing, and pursuing longer-term strategic initiatives — with every opportunity ranked by financial impact and ease of implementation

Results delivered in weeks, not months. Within four to six weeks of commencement, Pinnacle presents a detailed findings report and action roadmap, then provides hands-on implementation support to ensure savings are actually realised — backed by ongoing tracking via Pinnacle's SaaS scheme fee platform to monitor every dollar saved

The Results

The Numbers That Make the Decision Easy

The Scheme Fee Review is consistently one of the highest-returning engagements Pinnacle delivers — not because the savings are incremental, but because they are structural, recurring, and realised fast. Clients don't just recover the cost of the engagement many times over; they walk away with a permanently lower cost base, a clearer understanding of their scheme fee exposure, and the tools to ensure savings don't erode over time. The track record speaks for itself.

Cost reductions of 10–25% are the norm, not the exception. Across a diverse global client base spanning issuers, acquirers, fintechs, and BIN Sponsors, Pinnacle consistently identifies scheme fee savings in the range of 10% to 25% of total spend — with the largest engagements delivering tens of millions of dollars in annual savings that recur every year from the point of implementatio

Savings are realised quickly and tracked rigorously. The first cost reductions typically begin to flow within two to three months of engagement commencement, with Pinnacle's SaaS scheme fee tracking platform monitoring realisation on an ongoing basis — ensuring that savings identified don't quietly reverse as schemes introduce new fees or change billing practices

Billing errors and unjustified charges are recovered. Line-by-line invoice analysis frequently uncovers historical overcharging and erroneous billing that can be challenged directly with Visa and Mastercard — meaning clients often recover backdated amounts in addition to achieving forward-looking cost reductions

A permanently stronger foundation for scheme cost management. Beyond the immediate savings, clients gain a granular understanding of their scheme fee structure that informs negotiations, improves budgeting accuracy, and ensures they are never again paying for services they don't need or penalties they shouldn't be incurring