Transbank Review

Transbank is Chile's largest card acquirer, which traces its origins to a company a group of banks set up in 1989 and is still owned by banks. Its biggest shareholders are Banco de Chile, Banco Santander-Chile and Scotiabank Chile. It signs merchants directly under its own Visa, Mastercard and American Express acquiring licences, and it sells card terminals, the Webpay online checkout, Oneclick stored-card payments and free payment links. Its tariff page lists 2.29% on credit cards and 1.49% on debit and prepaid cards, plus IVA, for merchants that join from 1 September 2026. Two help-centre articles still quoted 2.35% and 1.75% in October 2026, so confirm the rate in writing. Existing merchants are priced differently. Debit sales made before 2pm on a business day are paid the next business day, and credit sales a day later. The contract has no fixed term and either side can end it on 30 days' notice. For most of its life Transbank's pricing was regulated. Its acquiring margin was freed in January 2026, after the Supreme Court upheld a 2025 competition-tribunal ruling and the competition authority confirmed Transbank's share of acquirer processing, by number of transactions, had been below 50% for six months. Its record includes a 2024 fine from the financial regulator and several lawsuits from large merchants and payment companies over fee increases.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Transbank’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What Transbank is

Transbank S.A. is Chile's longest-established card acquirer. Transbank dates its history to 1989, when a group of banks created the Sociedad Interbancaria Administradora de Tarjetas de Crédito to run credit cards. Its annual report says the present company was constituted by public deed on 24 November 1993. It took on merchant acquiring in the early 1990s. After merging with Edibank in 1998 it adopted the Transbank name. It launched the Redcompra debit network and the Webpay online checkout in 2000, and Webpay Plus in 2008. Today it provides card terminals, online and stored-card payments, payment links and early settlement for Chilean businesses of every size. Its offices are in Las Condes, Santiago.

The company describes its own scale in different ways on different pages. Its consumer-facing site says it serves more than 200,000 businesses with about 700 staff. Its investor site says more than 340,000 businesses and about 650 staff. Both pages say it averages 8 million transactions a day. We could not reconcile the two merchant counts and have not used either as a current figure.

Ownership and regulation

Transbank is owned by banks that operate in Chile. Its 2025 annual report lists the shares at the end of 2025: Banco de Chile 26.16%, Banco Santander-Chile 25.00%, Scotiabank Chile 22.69%, and Banco Itaú Chile, Banco de Crédito e Inversiones (BCI) and BancoEstado 8.72% each. Banco BICE, Banco Internacional, Banco Falabella and JP Morgan Chase Bank hold a handful of shares each. The report says none of the shareholders is a controller. It also says five banks (Santander, BancoEstado, Scotiabank, BCI and Banco de Chile) have set up blind trusts to represent them, to avoid conflicts of interest. Transbank's public shareholder page names only three of those banks as using a blind mandate and also lists Banco Security with a token stake; we follow the more recent annual report.

Legally, Transbank is a sociedad de apoyo al giro bancario (a bank support company) under article 74 of Chile's General Banking Law. It is also an operadora de tarjetas de pago (payment card operator) under Central Bank of Chile rules. It is supervised by the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF), and its operations fall under Chilean bank secrecy.

Why we list Transbank as a platform

Transbank holds the merchant agreement itself. Merchants sign its contrato de afiliación directly, and since 2020 it has acquired under its own Visa, Mastercard and American Express licences. It runs its own authorisation, processing and settlement, and it owns and rents out its terminals. That is the acquirer position in our taxonomy, which we call platform. It is not a payment facilitator, because merchants are not sub-merchants of another acquirer, and it is not a reseller of someone else's processing.

What it costs

• Credit cards: 2.29% per transaction, plus IVA, for merchants that join from 1 September 2026. Domestic and foreign cards, all channels.
• Debit and prepaid cards: 1.49% per transaction, plus IVA, on the same basis.
• Minimum commission: 0.003515 UF per credit transaction and 0.002260 UF per debit or prepaid transaction. It applies only when the percentage comes to less.
• Smart POS rental: CLP 6,990 + IVA a month for the first 12 months for new customers, then 0.64 UF + IVA a month, as of October 2026.
• Pocket POS rental: CLP 1,490 + IVA a month for 12 months, then 0.32 UF + IVA a month.
• Mobile POS reader: CLP 19,990 to buy, with no rental. The Pack Emprende bundle (reader plus payment link) is the same price.
• Link de Pago, Webpay Plus (self-integrated) and Oneclick: no monthly fee, commission only. Transbank can integrate Webpay Plus for a one-off fee.
• Voids (anulaciones): free up to 1% of a month's transactions per payment method, then 0.00427 UF + IVA each.
• Anticipo de Abonos (same-day payouts): a referential 0.4% + IVA for merchants selling under CLP 10 million a month, set by your average monthly sales over the last 12 months.

The UF (Unidad de Fomento) is Chile's inflation-indexed unit of account, so the UF-priced items rise with inflation. Every Transbank price listed here excludes IVA, which is 19%.

There is a conflict on Transbank's own sites. The tariff page and the in-store product pages (Smart POS, Pocket POS, Mobile POS and Pack Emprende) show 2.29% and 1.49% in October 2026, with the note "Tarifas validas a partir del 1 septiembre de 2026 para nuevos comercios afiliados" (rates valid from 1 September 2026 for newly affiliated merchants). At the same date, two help-centre articles on what it costs to sell with Transbank and with Webpay still gave the values "para comercios nuevos" (for new merchants) as 2.35% on credit and 1.75% on debit and prepaid, with the same minimums. We treat the dated tariff page as current, and the help centre as not yet updated, but ask for your rate in writing.

The flat rate is stated for new merchants only. The help centre says a commission depends on the payment method, the card type (classic, gold, black and so on), the brand, the channel and the business category, and does not publish a rate for merchants that joined earlier. That is because it passes through the issuer's interchange fee and the card network's fees, plus Transbank's own margin. Chilean law (Ley 21.365) caps interchange through a committee that sets limits by card brand, business category (MCC), transaction type and card category. The highest limits are 0.50% on debit, 0.94% on prepaid and 1.14% on credit, with lower limits in some categories. On 30 September 2024 the committee opened a review of the limits and, as a provisional measure, kept the limits then in force until that review ends, instead of letting a second scheduled reduction take effect (Diario Oficial, 1 October 2024). Chilean press reported in December 2025 that the limits were unchanged while a new impact study was commissioned. We could not reach the committee's own website to confirm the position in October 2026.

How Transbank's pricing came to be deregulated

For most of its history Transbank acquired on behalf of the issuing banks that owned it, in what is called a three-party model. Chile's competition tribunal (TDLC) approved a tariff self-regulation plan for it in 2006. Between 2019 and 2020 Transbank moved to a four-party model: it ended its mandates from issuers, obtained its own network licences and began charging its own acquiring margin. In 2021 the TDLC approved the tariff system Transbank proposed for the new model (Resolution 67/2021). In August 2022 the Supreme Court overturned it and required a fixed, objective margin that was the same for every merchant. Transbank says it introduced that fixed margin in August 2022, set at its economic cost by an independent expert panel appointed jointly with the competition authority (FNE).

In March 2025 the TDLC approved a new Transbank tariff system with conditions (Resolution 86/2025). The system had to allow pricing differences that reflect costs, and could use public, non-discriminatory floors and ceilings. Transbank could also match competitors' prices. The margin could be deregulated once Transbank's monthly share of acquirer processing, measured by number of transactions, stayed below 50% for at least six months in a row. The Supreme Court rejected all appeals against that resolution on 14 January 2026. On 28 January 2026 the FNE confirmed the condition was met (Resolution 22/2026). Transbank may now set its acquiring margin freely. The FNE closed its compliance investigation at the same time. The 1 September 2026 tariff for new merchants came after that change. Transbank's legal-background page still describes the 2022 fixed-margin system, so it is out of date.

Hardware and online products

In store, the main options as of October 2026 are the Smart POS, an Android terminal with a touch screen, 4G and Wi-Fi, and the smaller Pocket POS, which emails receipts and handles split bills and electronic receipts (an extra service). The Mobile POS is a Bluetooth reader you buy and pair with a phone app. Transbank also lists fixed, self-service and vending terminals for larger merchants. Terminals accept chip, contactless and magnetic-stripe cards, plus digital wallets. Transbank says it accepted 13 wallets after Apple Pay arrived in Chile in 2023.

Online, Link de Pago (Webpay.cl) creates payment links you can share without a website. Webpay Plus is the checkout for your own site, with plugins for Shopify, VTEX, Wix and common platforms, and SDKs on Transbank Developers. Oneclick stores a returning customer's card for one-click payments, and PatPass handles automatic recurring card payments. A Webpay integration must be validated by Transbank's support team before you can sell. Card sales can be paid in instalments (cuotas) on Chilean-issued credit cards.

Payouts

Transbank deposits to any Chilean bank account at no extra charge, and the deposit shows as "Abono débito crédito Transbank". For debit (Redcompra), sales before 2pm on a business day are paid 24 hours later, and sales after 2pm or on a holiday 48 hours later. Credit sales take 48 and 72 hours respectively. Debit sales after 2pm on a Friday, or at the weekend, are paid the following Tuesday, and credit sales the following Wednesday. These timings apply to sales in Chilean pesos; Transbank tells merchants selling in US dollars to ask their account executive.

Anticipo de Abonos pays all card types together twice a day, every day including weekends and holidays. Transbank quotes 0.4% + IVA as a referential rate for merchants selling less than CLP 10 million a month, and says the rate depends on average monthly sales over the past 12 months. You must already be a customer and pass a risk review.

Contract terms

The newest merchant contract we found on Transbank's site is the contrato de afiliación dated January 2021. It has a "duración indefinida" (indefinite term). Either party can end it at any time without cause on at least 30 calendar days' notice, and the merchant can drop individual card brands on the same notice. We found no early-termination fee. Transbank may suspend service or end the contract immediately if the merchant breaches card-data security rules. The merchant must then reimburse Transbank's losses, including card-network fines. Transbank may also recover a payment already made if it later finds the sale did not meet the contract's requirements, by deducting it from later deposits. In some cases it can require a bank guarantee (boleta de garantía), and hold payments until that guarantee is provided or renewed. Merchants have 30 calendar days to dispute a settlement statement before it is treated as accepted. Other durations in the contract: affiliation is provisional for the first 30 calendar days, during which Transbank may reject the merchant, and it may withhold payouts while required documents are missing; any bank guarantee must stay in force for at least three months after the contract ends; and either party may end the contract immediately if the other breaches it. Each party's liability for a breach is capped at the tariffs the merchant paid in the previous 12 months.

Disputes are part of the basic service up to 0.02% of a month's transactions. Transbank's October 2023 tariff schedule prices each chargeback above that at 0.33 UF + IVA. For unauthenticated transactions, where the merchant takes the risk, the fee applies to every chargeback. Under a contract annex in force since 1 January 2020, no contract tariff, including terminal rental, accrues for any billing period in which the terminal records no transaction. Only the merchant's legal representative can cancel, by calling Transbank, and rented terminals must be returned.

Legal and regulatory record

Transbank's 2025 annual report discloses a long list of proceedings. In October 2024 the CMF fined it 1,000 UF for breaching the exclusive-business rules for bank support companies by offering electronic receipts (boletas electrónicas) through a third party. Transbank paid without appealing. The CMF also ordered Transbank to stop advancing instalment payments to merchants, finding the service outside its permitted business. Transbank challenged the order, and the Supreme Court rejected its final appeal on 3 November 2025.

Several large merchants have sued over the fee increases Transbank applied from September 2021 under the four-party model. Copec won an arbitration award in January 2024 requiring Transbank to refund the extra commissions, and the two settled in May 2025. Claro and VTR sued in December 2025 for about CLP 2.49 billion they say Transbank withheld after they refused the increase. A supermarket group's (SMU) court challenge on the same issue was rejected in February 2025. The payment company ProntoPaga has brought a competition case against Mastercard and Transbank before the TDLC, and in 2022 several payment companies, including PayU, Paygol and PPRO, sued Mastercard and Transbank there over cross-border sub-acquiring charges; those cases were consolidated. In February 2026 the TDLC rejected SumUp's competition claim that Transbank's August 2022 margin increase breached the Supreme Court's ruling and squeezed its margins. Two software companies have also sued Transbank for about CLP 747 million in a copyright case over a reporting tool. These are disclosures in Transbank's own report, approved in January 2026, and the open cases may have moved since.

Reputation and support

We found no Trustpilot profile for transbank.cl. On Reclamos.cl, a Chilean complaints site, the Webpay/Transbank page lists complaints going back to 2008. They peaked at 624 in 2021 and fell to 33 in 2025 and 16 so far in 2026. The site says 25% of complaints were resolved satisfactorily. Most are from shoppers about Webpay payments, such as duplicate charges or payments taken without the order completing, rather than from merchants. Merchant complaints on the same site concern deposits not received and retained funds. Transbank's help centre has a dedicated form for retained-funds claims and says it answers them in 11 business days on average.

Support is by phone from 8am to 10pm, Monday to Sunday, live chat from 9am to 8pm, WhatsApp, a virtual assistant and an online requests system. Merchants see sales, deposits and the fees actually charged in the Portal de Clientes and the Transbank app.

Who Transbank suits

Transbank suits businesses established in Chile that want to accept every Chilean and foreign card in store, online and by payment link, from one provider with published rates for new merchants. Next-day debit payouts at no extra cost help small businesses with cash flow, and the indefinite contract with 30 days' notice means you are not locked in. Before signing, get the commission in writing, given the conflict between Transbank's tariff page and help centre. Check what the terminal rental becomes after month 12, and ask for the current chargeback and void fees. Larger merchants on older pricing should ask for their rate to be reviewed now that Transbank's margin is no longer regulated. Businesses outside Chile, or those that need one contract across several countries, will need a different provider.