GLOSSARY
Flat-rate card pricing
A single, transparent percentage charged on every card transaction — no interchange-plus, no scheme fees, no surprises.
Flat-rate card pricing means the merchant pays one consistent percentage per card transaction, regardless of card type, brand, or channel. The processor wraps interchange (paid to the issuing bank), scheme fees (paid to Visa/Mastercard/Amex), and its own margin into a single rate.
Compare this to interchange-plus, where you see line items for each component and the total varies by card. Interchange-plus is cheaper on debit cards and rewards-light credit cards but more expensive on premium cards (Amex, business credit) — and the variability makes monthly costs hard to predict.
Kotao uses a published flat card rate — same on every card, every channel. No surcharge for Amex. No off-platform penalty. Same rate on Apple Pay and Google Pay. The trade is simplicity over the absolute lowest possible rate; for most operators, the predictability and the time saved on reconciliation more than offset the difference.
In the product
Where this term matters in operation.
The glossary is not meant to be academic. It explains the language teams use in Kotao while selling, planning, paying, reporting, and automating.
In sales
Terms like this appear inside POS, checkout, bookings, offers, and customer communication.
In back office
Finance, inventory, HR, and reporting need the same meaning so reports do not drift apart.
In integrations
APIs, imports, webhooks, and exports work better when teams use the same definitions.
Related terms.
SCA
Strong Customer Authentication — the European requirement that online card payments be verified by two independent factors.
Acquirer
Bank or payment institution that signs merchants and routes their card transactions into the card networks.
API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate with each other.
Apple Pay
Mobile wallet by Apple that tokenizes cards for contactless and in-app payments.