What is FeeCheck? — The Neutral Payment Fee Comparison for Europe

FeeCheck is an independent, non-commercial comparison service for payment fees. We enable small and medium-sized businesses across Europe to understand the true costs of their card payments — and to compare those costs transparently, without bias and without advertising influence.

What is FeeCheck?

FeeCheck is a neutral digital information platform that helps European merchants understand and compare the costs associated with accepting card payments. FeeCheck is not a payment provider, not a broker, and not a financial adviser. FeeCheck compares — it does not recommend.

The platform was built to address a specific problem: payment fees in Europe are complex, often opaque, and difficult to compare across providers. Interchange fees, scheme fees, acquiring margins, and blended pricing make direct comparisons nearly impossible without specialist knowledge. FeeCheck makes this structure transparent.

What FeeCheck Is — and What It Is Not

What FeeCheck is:

An independent comparison tool for card payment costs across European markets
A knowledge resource explaining EU payment fee structures, regulations, and terminology
A neutral information service operating without commercial agreements with any compared payment provider
A platform compliant with EU regulations including GDPR and the EU AI Act transparency requirements

What FeeCheck is not:

A payment service provider (PSP) — FeeCheck does not process payments
A financial broker or intermediary — FeeCheck does not earn commissions on contracts
A recommendation engine — FeeCheck does not advise merchants which provider to choose
A ranking system influenced by payments — no provider can pay for a better position

How FeeCheck Ensures Neutrality

Neutrality is FeeCheck's core operating principle. It is enforced through three mechanisms:

1. Independence from compared providers FeeCheck accepts no placement fees, referral commissions, or sponsored content from the payment providers included in its comparisons. This is non-negotiable and documented in our comparison logic and neutrality policy.

2. Data from authoritative public sources FeeCheck's fee data is derived from:

EU regulatory publications (European Banking Authority, European Central Bank)
Card network fee schedules (Visa, Mastercard — publicly filed portions)
Direct provider tariff publications
The Interchange Fee Regulation (EU 2015/751) as the legal baseline

3. Transparent methodology Every comparison is based on documented parameters. Our methodology page explains exactly what is compared, how it is calculated, and what the limitations of our data are.

Who Uses FeeCheck

FeeCheck is designed for:

SME merchants (brick-and-mortar and e-commerce) across the EU who want to understand their payment costs
Finance managers and accountants at larger businesses reviewing payment cost structures
Entrepreneurs and start-ups setting up card acceptance for the first time
Journalists and researchers who need factual data on European payment fees

FeeCheck is particularly useful for businesses operating in high-card-payment environments: retail, hospitality, e-commerce, and professional services.

Why Payment Transparency Matters in Europe

The European Union has made significant regulatory progress on payment transparency:

The Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR, EU 2015/751) — enacted in 2015 — caps interchange fees for consumer card transactions within the EEA:

Debit card transactions: maximum 0.20% of transaction value
Credit card transactions: maximum 0.30% of transaction value

However, these caps apply only to the interchange component. Scheme fees (charged by card networks) and acquiring margins (charged by payment service providers) remain unregulated and vary significantly. A merchant accepting card payments may see an effective cost of 0.3% to over 2.5% per transaction depending on their provider, pricing model, card mix, and business sector.

The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2, EU 2015/2366) introduced transparency obligations for payment service providers — but the complexity of multi-component pricing still leaves many merchants unable to compare costs effectively. FeeCheck exists to bridge this gap.

EU-Wide Coverage

FeeCheck operates across the European Economic Area (EEA), with specific attention to national payment ecosystems:

Market	Key National Systems	Notes
Germany (DE)	Girocard	Dominant domestic debit scheme; very low interchange
France (FR)	Carte Bancaire (CB)	Large domestic network; favourable domestic rates
Italy (IT)	Bancomat / PagoBancomat	National debit infrastructure; growing card penetration
Spain (ES)	Redsys network	Large domestic acquiring infrastructure
Netherlands (NL)	iDEAL	SEPA-based; dominant for online; low cost
Austria (AT)	Bankomatkarte (transitioning)	Maestro phase-out; shift to Debit Mastercard
Switzerland (CH)	TWINT	Non-EEA; CHF; specific cost structure

FeeCheck provides country-specific information where national payment systems produce materially different cost structures for merchants.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is FeeCheck free to use? Yes. FeeCheck is entirely free for merchants. There are no registration fees, subscription charges, or hidden costs for using our comparison tool.

Which countries does FeeCheck cover? FeeCheck covers the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. Our primary focus markets are Germany, Austria, France, Spain, and Italy, with further EU markets in active development.

How does FeeCheck make money? FeeCheck operates on a transparency-first model. Revenue comes from non-influenced sources such as anonymous data licensing and B2B research reports — never from placement fees or commissions paid by compared providers.

Does FeeCheck recommend specific providers? No. FeeCheck does not recommend, rank, or endorse specific payment providers. We present objective cost comparisons based on publicly available data and EU-regulated fee structures.

Who is behind FeeCheck? FeeCheck is an independent European information service operated by a team of payment industry specialists and data analysts. We are registered within the EU and operate under GDPR. See our imprint for full legal details.