How To Guide : UK Merchant Accounts

[IridiumCorp]

How To Guide : UK Merchant Accounts

1.0 IntroductionThere seems to be a lack of information available to businesses either starting trading or currently trading to help inform you Merchants as to what a Internet Merchant Account is, what you need to do to get one, common pitfalls, and the reason why you would want one in the first place.

So what qualifies me to write such a guide. I work for a company that provides a payment gateway. I have helped literally thousands of Merchants of all shapes and sizes, with every business plan under the sun you could possibly imagine.

Being that I do work for a company that provides an internet payment gateway service I will try to keep my comments unbiased. Please do not ask questions about what I think of other similar services or PM me.

2.0 What is a Merchant Account

People sometimes confuse Merchant Accounts with Bank Accounts. They are two totally separate things. A bank account is where your business funds are stored. A Merchant Account is a credit account arranged between the Merchant and an Credit Card Acquiring Bank. Before you can get a Merchant Account you will need to go through a credit process with the Acquiring Bank in order to assess your suitability.

The credit process is what most people trip up on regardless of whether they are a suitable candidate or not. This guide will hopefully help you through the process.

There are three basic kinds of Merchant Accounts with the differentiation being who is present at the point of transaction. The three types are:

2.1 Card Holder Present (CP) - This can be thought of as traditional retail where both the Merchant and the card holder are present at the point of sale.

2.2 Mail Order/Telephone Order (MOTO) - MOTO accounts are used when the Merchant accepts orders from customers and processes them with the customer not present. This type is sometimes called Card Holder Not Present (CNP).

2.3 Internet Merchant Account (IMA) - An IMA is used when the Merchant is either trading from a shop or service online or has a need to run automated transactions where neither the Merchant nor the customer necessarily is present at the point of transaction.

For most companies who whish to trade online a simple IMA will do. If you plan to take a significant number of your orders via telephone or other means then you will also need to get a MOTO Merchant Account.

Section Top Tip : IMA accounts are the most expensive of the three types due to the higher risk associated with the accounts. If you are doing more than a couple MOTO style transactions it is in your best interest to get a MOTO account as the rates are usually lower and you will save money.

3.0 Why Do I Need A Merchant Account?

There is one major reason why getting a Merchant Account direct from an Acquiring Bank is beneficial to your company. It puts you in the credit food chain which means the longer you trade the better rates and terms you will get. If you use a Bureau Service like Worldpay, Paypal, Google you have no credit agreement in place direct with the underlying bank. What this means is that in a couple years when you decide to move to an acquiring bank you will find all the time trading is for nothing and you will start out on the first step of the credit ladder with the Acquiring Bank.

Section Top Tip : If you are planning on launching a website/service set a firm launch date. Approach an Acquiring Bank the point where your developer has a Beta site up that can be reviewed. There is normally a couple week gap between a site going to beta and a site actually going live. This window is more than enough to get a Merchant Account if you follow this guide.

[SNIP]

[IridiumCorp]

4.0 Where do I get a Merchant Account from?

There is a common misconception that you need to get your Merchant Account from the bank your business account is with. This is totally untrue. You can be banked with bank X and have your merchant account with bank y. There is no extra cost, there is no penalty imposed. This means that you can shop around for the most suitable service to your needs. Not all acquiring banks are the same in terms on the service they provide.

Below is a list of UK Acquiring Banks. If I have missed anyone out let me know.
Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS)
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Streamline
HSBC
Barclays Merchant Services (BMS)
Lloyds Cardnet
Alliance & Leicester
Allied Irish Bank (AIB)
Bank of Ireland
SEB Private BankingPremium Card Types
American Express
JCB
Diners ClubSection Top Tip : Don't just get a quote from one bank and be happy with it. Get as many as you possibly can. Think of the banks like used car salesmen. They all sing a pretty song but at the end of the day they are after your money. Use the quotes from competing offers against the banks to get lower rates. it may take some time but the results will show on the savings you achieve with every single sale.

5.0 How Long Does It Take To Get A Merchant Account?

The time it takes to get a Merchant Account in the UK is directly relational to the quality of your application. What tends to slow down and can stop some application is Merchants not understanding when an what to do during the application process. This causes the application to be red flagged by the bank which extends the time for the application and or the application fails. You MUST MUST MUST MUST ( <---- Cant stress this enough ) have the following in place before you even pick up a phone to the bank.


UK Registered Company - Sole Traders can get Merchant accounts but if the business takes off then you will want to go limited for tax and liability reasons. If you then switch to limited your time trading jumps back to zero and you get the pleasure of starting over. For the sake of £40.00 do it now.
UK Business Bank Account - It always amazes me how many people try to get a Merchant Account and do not have a business bank account in place. This account must be in the company name with the director of the company as signatuere (sp?) on the account.
Business Plan - If you are a start-up you will be asked for your business plan. As your business plan is a 100% direct reflection of your skills to plan, organise and run a business you should probably spend more than a couple of hours on it. You will fail your application if you can not show a basic ability to plan. There are business mentors out there that will review it. Go to your bank manager to have them read over it.
Written Business Summary - In no more than one page describe what it is your business will be doing, is doing etc. A concise snapshot that the bank can review.
Management Accounts (P&L) - Regardless of whether you are trading or not you should have current managment accounts and a profit & loss projection for the next 6 months minimum. You will be asked to produce them.
Website - If you are going to be trading from a website you will need that website up for the acquiring bank to review in at least beta format. This is a 100% must. There is no point in even picking up the phone unless you have this in place.
Terms & Conditions (T&Cs)- Your website has to be card scheme compliant. Therefore you need T&Cs on your site. Best practice is to have a link to them on every page. Your T&Cs must cover sales policy, refund policy, returns policy, privacy policy etc. I suggest picking 5 or so well know sites in your industry and going through there T&Cs. Pick out the pieces that you like and write your own making sure you cover everything that is covered by them. Remember a credit card sale is a credit agreement which the customer is entering into with you. If you breach your T&Cs they have the right to claim there money back AND keep the product so make sure you spend the time and get the details in them right.
Picture Identification - Seems daft but you would be surprised how many people don't have. You will need a picture driving license or passport. The bank is required to carry what are called Know Your Customer (KYC) checks. Part of these is to check out you are who you say you are.
Other Paperwork - Depending on how you are going to operate and what you are doing you may be asked to produce any contracts from your suppliers. Make sure your suppliers are actually under contract. You will fail if this is not the case.Before you pick up the phone to the banks you should have an information pack ready. You will be allocated a bank representative and the easier you can make their life the faster your application will go through.

Section Top Tip : If your a startup you present a higher risk to the banks. This is not a show stopper as some people think. Spend some time on the bits and pieces above and you can actually look to be a decent proposal for a merchant account. It will also get your head into details of how you are actually going to trade and thereby avoid common pitfalls & mistakes new Merchants Make.

6.0 Summary

I can not stress enough how important it is to get yourself setup correctly to take online payments. There is in the industry what I call the Merchant Migration. New Merchants tend to go down the Bureau service route then in time realise they are paying above the odds and in some cases losing a tonne of business because of the way some Bureau services take payments. I have seen it countless times where a Merchant comes off of them to a standard Merchant Account setup and they see their sales increase immediately. Hopefully this guide will be enough of a starting point that you will be able to get your foot in the door with an Acquirer. For some Merchants Bureau services are the best way but all large online companies have proper Merchant Accounts and there is a very good reason for this being the case.

I will be extending this guide when I have more time. If you find an error in it please PM me. If something is not clear or you want to know something not covered then feel free to comment hear or to PM me.

Good luck to you all!!!!

Sean
Iridium Corporation

[IridiumCorp]

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[IridiumCorp]

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[IridiumCorp]

Reserved For Future Content

[gibby]

thank you for this info
really helpful & spot on

G

[kulture]

Useful, but missing 2 important points I think.

Firstly look in to schemes supported by organisations like The Federation of Small Businesses, or the British Shops and Stores Association. Their deals can be much much better than anything offered initially by a merchant.

Secondly, although you do not need to bank with the aquirer it can help. It can give you more leverage to negotiate, your bank manager can better argue your case when there are problems, you can get your money quicker. The last is especially nice. If a customer pays by card today, the money is in my bank tomorrow.

[quikshop]

Excellent post Sean, very informative and well presented.

As mentioned above you can more than halve the introductory commission charges by going through the FSB (http://www.FSB.org.uk), and it might have changed in the last few years but when we got our various merchant accounts in the past we've never once been asked to present a business plan or P&L accounts :eek:

[IridiumCorp]

It depends on the acquiring bank to be honest as well if the Merchant has been trading for anytime. We see it more with HBOS/Cardnet as they use First Datacorp to handle their acquiring and its a funny with them. The point is that it should be prepared just in case. The last thing you want to be is caught short without one and not get an account.

[quikshop]

It depends on the acquiring bank to be honest as well if the Merchant has been trading for anytime. We see it more with HBOS/Cardnet as they use First Datacorp to handle their acquiring and its a funny with them. The point is that it should be prepared just in case. The last thing you want to be is caught short without one and not get an account.

I think over the years we've applied for 5 or 6 merchant accounts for various businesses, all new start-ups and never had to produce the business plan or p&l.

You are mostly likely right in that it depends on which aquiring bank you go through, we used Streamline each time because we were able to get beneficial rates through a Royal Bank of Scotland group bank.

The application to completion time has varied from 2 to 6 weeks and that's been purely down to their internal processes - the more vigerously we chased the application the quicker it got sorted.

[IridiumCorp]

the more vigerously we chased the application the quicker it got sorted.

That is absolutely correct. We advise people to call constantly and harass the banks.

I dont want to turn this into a sales pitch for Iridium Corporation but I would be interested in hearing some feedback on an about to be released service that one of the UK banks has taken from us.

We spent the last two years or so developing an online IMA application system that is actually tied into the banks back end. All the checks etc that are take up the time are done automatically. A merchant can get a decision within a couple of hours from completing the application, get a contract generated and emailed across same day. This means the Merchants will be able to have a live Merchant account within 3 days of first contact.

As you will agree this will be a first within our industry in the UK.

[Christiane]

Thanks for this, great idea, I spent ages trying to explain how this works to someone the other day as they want to set up a website...

[merchantacqu]

Hi,
High risk merchant accounts are designed for people engaged in high risk businesses such as telemarketing, travel industry, multi level marketing, gaming, adult services, pharmacies, phone card sales, timeshare rentals, and credit repair and counseling. You can get more information from www,merchentacquring.co.uk

[SPLASH]

very good post!

[HC-Martin]

Great post with lots of info!

Many thanks!

[merchantacq]

Hi,
Merchant Accounts providers specialize in providing high risk merchant account and payment processing solutions in the field of regular e-commerce, telemarketing, software, replica, travel, online pharmacy etc. You can get more information from www(dot)merchantacquiring(dot)co(dot)uk.

[merchanta12]

Hi,
These businesses could include travel merchant accounts; pharmacy merchant accounts; adult merchant accounts; telemarketing merchant accounts; Internet merchant accounts, etc. You can know more information from www(dot)merchantacquiring(dot)co(dot)uk.

[Kosta]

EmerchantPay is an European based provider of online credit card processing solutions to merchants worldwide providing, through its network of European and US Banks, a payment gateway through which its clients can accept global Visa and MasterCard online payments.

[IridiumCorp]

Admins - It seems this thread has become and advertising spam thread. Anything you can do about it?

[roger watts]

I'm reaaly having trouble getting a moto account, I want the facility just to collect invoices where customers are asking to pay over the phone. We don't have a web presence and there is nogoods to be despatched. I've tried pay pal worldpay et al and unless we want a web site shopping cart as well they won't help any ideas please.?

[Mustaka]

I'm reaaly having trouble getting a moto account, I want the facility just to collect invoices where customers are asking to pay over the phone. We don't have a web presence and there is nogoods to be despatched. I've tried pay pal worldpay et al and unless we want a web site shopping cart as well they won't help any ideas please.?

Roger,

We offer a solution calle "PayByLink". Basically how it works is from within the merchant management system you jey in the details for the invoice. A link is created that is mailed to your customer or that you can mail them. Once they click on the link they are brought to a secure page hosted on our secure systems. This page has all the details for the invoice. They key in their card details and the payment is taken.

Whole idea behind the system is for people like yourselves that need to take payment but may not have a web presence. Or people who want to do adhoc billing over the phone but get the liability shift from 3D secure.

Hope that helps.

[IridiumCorp]

Oops - Was logged in on the wrong account.

Mustaka = IridiumCorp