when credit debit and prepaid mastercard cards are issued through partners the financial institution is primarily responsible for all of the underwriting and issuance of the card 
mastercard network processing and feescards within the mastercard network have different relationship maps depending on the type of card offered and the agreements in place regardless mastercard charges fees for usage of each mastercard typically the five entities involved in a transaction are the cardholders merchants acquiring banks issuers and mastercard as the network processor fees can vary depending on card and merchant agreements as a network processing service provider mastercard is responsible for the processing of a transaction mastercard may charge the issuer of a mastercard a switching fee at the time of a card authorization but generally most fees involved with the transaction process are known as interchange fees and are negotiated between the issuer and the acquirer to accept mastercard electronic payments a merchant must have their own acquiring bank that is capable of receiving electronic payments on the mastercard network when a cardholder uses their mastercard the funds are routed from the cardholder s mastercard issuing bank to the merchant s bank account the merchant pays the issuer a fee on each transaction known as the merchant discount for mastercard the majority of the company s revenue is generated from transaction fees charged to issuers and acquirers which pay mastercard based on gross dollar volume gdv the gdv fee is a percentage of the total gdv issuers also may be required to pay mastercard a fee based on the co branded card agreement each co branded card agreement has different terms for fees but in general the gdv fee is a basic standard mastercard may also charge the issuer a switching fee for each card authorization which can be a factor in determining the issuer s interchange fee for the merchant 