isa U.S.A. announced it's waiving all of its registration fees, including both initial registration and annual registration fees, for "third-party servicers" until Sept. 30, 2004. Visa defines a third-party servicer (TPS) as an organization that is: not a member, not directly connected to VisaNet, and that provides response processing for Visa program solicitations, transaction processing, data capture and other backroom processing functions (i.e. chargeback processing, risk/security reporting and customer service).

Mary Dees, President, CEO and founder of Creditranz, Inc. helped further explain the term TPS in a post on GS Online's MLS Forum: "The term 'TPS' now refers to a much broader group of companies than those that do actual Base I or Base II processing.

"It covers anyone who provides any kind of service or storage of Visa cardholder data. This could be a provider of POS registers and software, reporting analysis software or services, hotel property management software and service providers, off-site electronic data storage companies and other similar types of companies."

Visa will not charge TPSs that register before Sept. 30, 2004 initial registration fees, which are $5,000. The card Association will also not charge annual registration fees, which are $2,500, until July 2005.

According to Visa, the fee waiver does not apply to fees currently charged to ISOs. Visa will continue to bill them to the registering member bank for each registered ISO partner. For organizations that consider themselves both an ISO and TPS for a member bank, for fee structuring purposes, Visa will consider the entity an ISO, and each member bank registering the organization as an ISO will still be billed the initial and annual fees.

"Visa is giving a very generous gift to the transaction processors of the world," said Jared Isaacman, CEO of United Bank Card, Inc.

At $5,000, the fee for TPS' first-time registration with Visa is rather steep; in the past, this fee and the annual registration fees required down the road have been too costly for some organizations. But now TPSs have a little more time to get their ducks in a row. A Visa spokesperson said the fees cover the privilege of working with Visa, and the reason for the fee waiver is to try to get all organizations out there who have not yet registered with the Association to do so; Visa and its member banks want to officially know with whom they're working. They also want these organizations to be aware of their responsibilities in order to help cut down on any risk Visa and its members might face.

"If you want to play, you've got to pay," said David H. Press, Principal and President of Integrity Bankcard Consultants, Inc. "If you want to skirt around in the shadows, sooner or later you'll get caught, and there are very hefty fines."

Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever. Beginning Oct. 1, 2004, Visa will reinstate its initial registration fee to TPSs when they first sign with a Visa member bank. Visa requires member banks to register its TPS partners.

To register a third-party ISO or IC, members must complete the "Independent Sales Organization/Third-party Servicer/Independent Contractor Registration" form (Visa U.S.A. Operating Regulations, Exhibit VV) and send it to Visa's Membership and Records Administration for processing. Upon completion of the registration process, all registration information will be housed in the Agent Reference File.

For more information on Visa fees, visit the FAQs section of GS Online at www.greensheet.com/mlsportal/industryfaq.html .