The Card Schemes charge a fee to the acquirer for using their network to process a transaction, this is known as a 'Scheme Fee'. Scheme Fees are typically lower than Interchange (at least for Domestic and Intra-regional traffic).

As with all transactional costs, they can be made up of a percentage of the value of transaction and/or a per-item charge, as well as have minimum and maximum absolute values applied.

The below shows the average % and per-item Scheme Fees for UK merchants, for various categories of transaction.

Fees are indicative only. The Scheme Fees applied to your statements may vary.

Visa scheme fees

Domestic: Merchant and Issuer are in the same country
Intra-Regional: Both Merchant and Issuer are in Europe except transactions in and out of Turkey, Israel and Switzerland which will attract Inter-Regional rates
Inter-Regional: Merchant is in Europe and Issuer is in other regions

Mastercard scheme fees

Domestic: Merchant and Issuer are in the same country
Intra-SEPA EUR: Both merchant & Issuer are in SEPA and transaction currency is EUR
Intra-SEPA NEUR: Both merchant & Issuer are in SEPA and transaction currency is not EUR
Intra-Non SEPA: Both or one of the party are outside SEPA region
Inter-Regional: Merchant is in Europe and Issuer is in other regions

Amex scheme fees