What Is CEDP?
CEDP stands for Commercial Enhanced Data Program. If your business accepts a lot of corporate purchasing or government credit cards, there’s a major change happening in the payments industry that could either increase your processing costs or reduce them significantly, depending on how you handle transactions.
How CEDP Works
Visa has introduced this new framework, CEDP. Merchants that process B2B transactions and submit the right information with each payment can reduce their interchange costs by as much as 1% compared to standard commercial card rates. Interchange is the wholesale rate that all processors have to cover, and then processors add a markup for themselves to make money servicing the merchant account for you.
Why Interchange Matters
The interchange makes up the bulk of the fees that you ultimately pay. So this new program, CEDP, replaces the old Level 2 and Level 3 interchange programs and changes how merchants qualify for lower interchange rates on business-to-business and business-to-government transactions. When you lower the risk, the interchange rate for the transaction is lower.
What Happens When Level 2 and Level 3 Go Away
When Level 2 and Level 3 go away starting April 1st, 2026, your processing costs will go up if you choose not to use CEDP. Businesses that accept corporate purchasing cards for large invoice payments already have purchase orders, invoices, line items, and shipping costs. They are perfect candidates for enhanced data submission because these are the items that need to be submitted along with the credit card information in order to lower the risk and lower the interchange rate.
Who Benefits the Most from CEDP
So these types of merchants—if you fit into this category with purchase orders—you can receive huge savings on your credit card payment processing, provided you include this data when you transmit the transaction. For companies like wholesale and industrial suppliers, building supply companies, electronics distributors, manufacturers, medical supply companies, and government contractors, adopting CEDP procedures can translate into tens of thousands of dollars in annual savings.
Pro Tip to Maximize Savings
Here’s my pro tip: If you’re a business processing a large number of corporate card payments, it’s worth reviewing your payment setup. The right system can help you capture and submit the enhanced data, helping you qualify for the lowest rates without a whole lot of extra work.
Get Started
Give me a call. I’m Ginger Gay at Electronic Money Company, 505-296-2847, to start saving 1% on your payment processing fees. This requires some education. You’ll need to work with somebody who’s versed and can help you do this properly. So, we invite you to call us and just talk it through. We’re here to help.
Stay up to date with our latest videos and merchant services tips, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking the link here: https://bit.ly/EMC_YouTubeSubscribe
Other topics you might be interested in: Avoid Costly Mistakes: Download our free report, 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Credit Card Processor
