Protect Acquiring Margins: Challenges & Solutions — Torus × SRM Free Webinar

Torus and SRM are hosting a webinar on Wednesday, 10th June to address the operational and financial complexities of Interchange++ pricing for acquirers. As scheme fees and reconciliation become increasingly difficult to manage, fintech professionals must bridge the gap between theoretical transparency and the practical reality of protecting margins in a high-volume environment.

What was announced

The webinar, scheduled for Wednesday, 10th June at 6 PM CEST, is designed to help acquirers identify and rectify the hidden inefficiencies in Interchange++ (IC++) pricing models. While IC++ is theoretically transparent, the session will explore how it creates a difficult balancing act between pricing accuracy, financial reconciliation, and operational speed. The discussion is specifically tailored for teams working in acquiring, pricing, finance, revenue assurance, and product management.

The panel features John Berns, Managing Director at SRM Europe, and Mark McCullagh, Transaction Economics Lead at SRM Europe. They are joined by Torus co-founders Kirill Lisitsyn, who serves as CEO, and Sergey Lebedev, the company’s CPO. The speakers will delve into the specifics of IC++ calculations and address the technical limitations of merchant billing systems that often hinder pricing flexibility.

Key areas of focus include identifying common traps where acquiring profitability is eroded and establishing an effective target process for managing merchant portfolio profitability. The interactive discussion will allow participants to present specific challenges to the experts. For those unable to attend the live broadcast on June 10th, recordings will be made available to all registered participants, ensuring the insights into margin protection and scheme fee complexity are accessible to a wider professional audience.

The companies involved

SRM Europe and Torus are collaborating to address the technical and financial hurdles within the modern acquiring landscape. SRM Europe is represented in this initiative by John Berns, who serves as Managing Director, and Mark McCullagh, the firm’s Transaction Economics Lead. Their focus on transaction economics suggests a specialization in the financial structures and economic frameworks that govern payment processing and merchant portfolio management.

Torus is led by its co-founding team, including CEO Kirill Lisitsyn and CPO Sergey Lebedev. The involvement of both the chief executive and the head of product indicates that the company views the management of Interchange++ and scheme fee complexity as a core strategic and technical challenge. By combining leadership from both the economic and product development sides of the industry, these organizations are targeting the specific challenges that arise when merchant billing systems limit pricing flexibility. Their place in the market is defined by the need for acquirers to reconcile complex fee structures with operational speed, a task that has become increasingly difficult as global payment schemes introduce more granular and frequent pricing updates.

What this means

The shift toward Interchange++ was intended to provide merchants with clarity, but it has shifted the burden of complexity onto the acquirers. This announcement highlights a growing industry-wide pressure: the "transparency trap," where operational overhead and reconciliation errors can quickly eat into thin margins. As scheme fees become more volatile and granular, the manual or legacy processes many acquirers still rely on are becoming a liability. The focus on merchant billing system limits suggests that the industry is hitting a technical ceiling where software flexibility, rather than just financial strategy, is becoming the primary determinant of an acquirer’s competitive edge and long-term profitability.