On July 16, 2018, Mastercard® announced the 2019 “Mastercard Enterprise Solutions – Freight Program Interchange Rate” interchange program and rate, which is effective from April 12, 2019. The Mastercard Enterprise Solutions (MES) interchange rates apply to commercial industry verticals.

The Freight Program will be the first commercial industry vertical to be launched and will enable participating entities to make payments linked to the distribution of freight utilizing virtual Mastercard account numbers. The virtual Mastercard account number can be used to settle freight transactions from anywhere in the world, at any point in time.

The new MES interchange rates provide differentiated operating guidelines to help participants compete more effectively in the payments market and to increase merchant acceptance for payments currently captured by cheque and other forms of payment.

MES Freight Program interchange rates apply to freight transactions that are acquired anywhere in the world and that are initiated with virtual Mastercard account numbers issued anywhere in the world.