System and method for pricing of merchant accounts

1. A system operating on a processor for managing merchant payment transaction processing accounts comprising:

a merchant initialization system for receiving merchant account data from a user;

a transaction pricing system for receiving the merchant account data and providing transaction pricing data for payment transaction processing in response to the merchant account information; and

means for obtaining approval for the transaction pricing data when profit targets are not reached based on the transaction pricing data.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

wherein user access to one or more merchant account pricing algorithms that are used to generate the transaction pricing data in response to the merchant account data is restricted to a predetermined set of users.

3. The system of claim 1 further comprising a merchant management system for receiving merchant historical transaction data for a predetermined period of time for a merchant associated with the merchant account data and generating merchant target data related to profitability targets.

4. The system of claim 1 further comprising a transaction pricing system for receiving the merchant account information and a target transaction rate and generating merchant revenue data using the target transaction rate.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the transaction pricing system further comprises a processor rules system for receiving a plurality of target transaction rates and generating a user-selectable target transaction rate interface.

6. The system of claim 4 further comprising a merchant guideline system for receiving the merchant revenue data and generating approval level data that indicates a required approval level for approving the merchant if the merchant revenue data is below a predetermined amount.

7. The system of claim 4 further comprising a merchant template system for receiving the merchant account data and merchant revenue data and generating merchant account modification data if the merchant revenue data is below a predetermined amount.

8. The system of claim 1 further comprising a transaction pricing system for receiving the merchant account data and a tiered transaction rate based on two or more target transaction rates and generating merchant revenue data.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the transaction pricing system further comprises a historical trend system for receiving merchant class data and transaction data for a plurality of merchants associated with the merchant class data and generating a profile of percentage transaction allocations between three or more different transaction processors for each of a plurality of classes of merchants.

10. The system of claim 1 further comprising means for determining whether one or more scaling factors create revenue for all merchants.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system is configured to:

receive merchant account data;

transmit the merchant account data to a system having access restricted to a predetermined set of users;

display one or more algorithms used for generating transaction pricing data to a user;

generate transaction pricing data for payment transaction processing at the system using the one or more algorithms and the merchant account data; and

provide the transaction pricing data to the user.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the system is configured to:

store transaction data associated with the merchant account data; and

generate merchant account modification data if the merchant account data does not correspond to the transaction data within a predetermined tolerance.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the system is configured to:

receive a target transaction rate from an authorization system; and

generate transaction pricing data for payment transaction processing at the system using the merchant account data and the target transaction rate.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the system is configured to receive a user selection from a plurality of target transaction rates from a plurality of authorization systems.

15. The system of claim 11 , wherein the system is configured to:

receive a tiered transaction rate based on two or more target transaction rates from two or more authorization systems; and

generate transaction pricing data for payment transaction processing at the system using the merchant account data and the tiered transaction rate.

16. The system claim 15 , wherein the system is configured to:

receive two or more transactions for each of a plurality of merchants;

determine which of two or more target transaction rates from two or more authorization systems a majority of the transaction data corresponds to and selecting those target transaction rates;

generate a scaling factor to approximate a target transaction rate for the transaction data that is not included in the majority of the transaction data; and

use the selected target transaction rates and the scaling factor to generate the tiered transaction rate.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the system is configured to select different integer numbers of target transaction rates to be used in the selected target transaction rates.

18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the system is configured to:

receive historical transaction data for a predetermined period of time for a merchant associated with the merchant account data; and

generate merchant target data that allows the user to determine whether the merchant has met one or more predetermined profitability targets.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the system is configured to generate merchant account modification data if the merchant revenue data is below a predetermined amount.

20. The system of claim 11 , wherein the system is configured to:

generate merchant revenue data using the transaction pricing data; and

generate approval notification data if the merchant revenue data is less than a predetermined amount.