by Ben Dwyer “Standard” is the second (and more expensive) of two “downgrade” interchange categories. It indicates that a business paid a “penalty” rate due to not meeting criteria for lower cost interchange categories.
Standard is the most expensive possible interchange category for consumer cards. It means that you paid the maximum to process that transaction.
Seeing a lot of “Standard” or abbreviations like “CONS STND” on your monthly processing statements? That indicates a problem with your transaction process. If you’re a CardFellow member, give us a call for assistance resolving your downgrades.
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Note that in the past, the standard downgrade applied to credit transactions in addition to debit and prepaid. At the time of this update, Visa’s published interchange table only shows standard applying to debit and prepaid cards. However, there are other downgrade categories that apply to consumer credit cards, which we address in other articles.
- What are downgrades?
- Standard Interchange Rates
- Differences Between EIRF and Standard
- Standard Interchange Criteria
- Aliases – Standard Interchange on Statements
What are downgrades?
Every interchange category has criteria for qualification. For each type of card, there’s a “target” interchange category, or the category that you can expect the card to fall under if everything is done correctly.
In credit card processing, a downgrade happens when a transaction doesn’t meet the requirements for that “target” interchange category. “Standard” is a downgrade interchange category for consumer credit, debit, and prepaid transactions. Downgrades mean you’ll pay more in interchange fees.
Occasional downgrades are to be expected, but a lot of downgrades each month indicates an issue. Check out our detailed explanation of interchange downgrades for further explanation.
Standard Interchange Rates
There are several “Standard” rates, depending on the card type. Here are the rates for debit and prepaid consumer cards. These rates come from the interchange schedule that Visa publishes on its website.
| Volume Rate | Per-Transaction Fee | |
| Standard Debit | 1.90% | $0.25 |
| Standard Debit Reg* | 0.05% | $0.22 |
| Standard Prepaid | 1.90% | $0.25 |
Rates subject to change at Visa’s discretion.
*Standard debit reg refers to “regulated” debit cards. A regulated debit card is a card issued by a bank with $10 billion or more in assets. See the section on regulated debit, below, for more info.
Note that these rates are not the only ones that will apply to your business. In fact, as downgrades, the less you see them, the better.
International Standard Interchange Fees
The exception for the Standard downgrade category applying to credit is for international cards. Credit cards issued in a foreign country but used in the United States have their own Standard interchange rates, as follows. The first three categories apply to credit cards, while the last refers to debit.
| Volume Rate | Per-Transaction Fee | |
| International Standard | 1.60% | $0.00 |
| International Standard (Signature) | 1.80% | $0.00 |
| International Standard (Infinite) | 1.97% | $0.00 |
| International Standard Debit Reg | 0.05% | $0.22 |
Rates subject to change.
A Note on Debit
In both the US and International interchange tables, above, there’s a category for debit regulated.
A “regulated” debit card is a debit card issued by any bank with $10 billion or more in assets. This includes banks like Suntrust, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and more. “Unregulated” debit cards are cards issued by all other banks.
“Regulated” debit cards are capped, meaning they have a maximum percentage and per-transaction fee at the interchange level. That cap is currently 0.05% + 22 cents. For US debit cards, non-regulated cards will receive the “Standard Debit” interchange rate in the table, while regulated cards will receive the capped “Standard Debit Reg” rate.
For international cards, there is only the International Standard Debit Regulated category.
Differences between EIRF and Standard
Both the Electronic Interchange Reimbursement Fee (EIRF) and Standard interchange categories are considered downgrade categories in most instances.
EIRF is the less expensive of the two, and the first line of downgrades. When you don’t meet particular requirements for less expensive “target” interchange categories, you’ll usually downgrade to EIRF. However, if you don’t meet the requirements for EIRF, you’ll downgrade further, to Standard.
That said, there are times when EIRF is not a downgrade. In those situations, it’s the best category a business can qualify for. So, there are times when EIRF is actually target interchange and not a penalty rate. That is not the case for Standard. In other words, Standard is always a downgrade.
Think of it like this: EIRF is usually a downgrade, but not always. If it is a downgrade, it’s the first “step” down. Standard is always a downgrade, and it’s the last (and most expensive) possible downgrade.
Lastly, EIRF only applies to consumer transactions. It does not apply to commercial cards. Standard applies to both consumer and commercial transactions. This article and rates noted above only apply to Standard consumer cards. There are separate rates for Standard commercial cards.
Standard Interchange Criteria
The “Standard” interchange category is essentially a catch-all for transactions that failed to meet qualifications for other categories.
As such, it doesn’t have its own specific requirements. Rather, not meeting requirements for other categories will drop a transaction down to Standard. Requirements for other categories vary by category. Criteria may include:
- Settling authorized transactions within a specific timeframe
- Utilizing anti-fraud tools, such as Address Verification Service (AVS)
- Obtaining signatures
This is not a finite list of criteria. However, as requirements are specific to individual interchange categories, it’s not possible to provide a comprehensive list. You can view the requirements for individual categories by visiting the CardFellow blog and browsing the interchange category articles.
Aliases – Standard Interchange on Statements
Different processors use different terms for interchange categories on statements. For Standard, you may see the full word or an abbreviation, such as STND. You may also see some of the following aliases:
- CONS STND (Consumer standard)
- VINTLSTND (Visa international standard)
- SIGN STND (Signature standard)
- VSPSTND (Visa signature preferred standard)
- VI STND D (Visa standard debit)
- VI STN DR (Visa standard debit regulated)
- INTLSTNDDR (International standard debit regulated)
- V STND PP (Visa standard prepaid)
