Protx - Internet Merchant Account?

[garysumpter]

Hi all.

I would like to sign up for the Protx small business solution as I want to move all our payment taking online.

However I will obviously need an Internet Merchant Account.

I have a business account with Natwest, so it would be with Streamline.

However Natwest and Streamline are very annoying people, my business manager is pretty useless.

What are my options? Can I get an IMA somewhere else? I dont want to discuss everything with the Streamline guy, I jsut want a nice easy package like the protx one.

Any suggestions?

Many Thanks

Gary

[Tigglet]

Hi Gary,

This section on the Protx website shows all the merchant banks Protx work with if you want an alternative to Streamline.

http://www.protx.co.uk/information/merchants_list.asp

Hope this helps.

[garysumpter]

Thanks - I dont REALLY want to move away from Natwest as that would be a lot of hassle.

However I dont like the streamline rates etc, so ideally I want an 'all in one' solution that will seamlessly take payments and put them in my natwest account very quickly.

Gary

[Tigglet]

Hi,

If you are prepared to go with Streamline in conjunction with Protx, I know that Streamline offer a better deal if you are a member of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). I believe that the membership fee for the FSB is dependent on the number of employees you have.

When I spoke to Streamline a couple of weeks ago, I was told the following offer is available if you are an FSB member:

No set up fee (normally £250)
Credit Card Fee - 1.98% (normally 2.6% - 3%)
Debit Card Fee - 30p (normally 40p - 50p)
No minimum monthly service charge (normally £20)

Perhaps this is an option worth exploring?

Also, your IMA doesn't have to be provided by your business bank account.

Julie

[garysumpter]

Thanks a lot, I did look at that, I believe the FSB membership is about £299?

Gary

[Tigglet]

£130 if its just you.

The rest of the rates can be found here:

http://www.fsb.co.uk/BENEFITS/membership/subscriptions.asp?id=1&loc=initforyou

[garysumpter]

Excellent!

Are any of you members?

Gary
Sitewonders Limited

[openmind]

One thing to note is that you could have a merchant account with say Lloyds and a bank account with Natwest if you wanted. The MA does not have to be with the same bank as your business account although you will sometimes find that rates are better from the bank that knows your business.

[garysumpter]

One thing to note is that you could have a merchant account with say Lloyds and a bank account with Natwest if you wanted. The MA does not have to be with the same bank as your business account although you will sometimes find that rates are better from the bank that knows your business.

Yes indeed.

I will contact the fsb and see what they say, if they can take care of it all then GREAT.

Gary

[Tigglet]

Excellent!

Are any of you members?

No, but I have looked into it due to the improved Streamline rates. Still deciding what to do! :|

[garysumpter]

Just spoken to them and will get a call back to arrange a meeting.

Gary

[Fergus]

I read your post Gary and thought ditto to it all (including the useless Natwest Business manager lol), so am thinking of going the same way by joining the FSB (as it seems a great deal ) . I was quoted last week £295 setup,2.9% on cards and £25 a month !! for a stramline IMA.

[garysumpter]

Hi Fergus,

I will see what they say, to be honest I dont want to pay any setup charge so I will see what deal I can get.

Gary

[jamie1183]

I use protx with HSBC all you need is a internet merchant account number you should nt have to deal with streamline.

[garysumpter]

I use protx with HSBC all you need is a internet merchant account number you should nt have to deal with streamline.

You do with Natwest and there is NO WAY I would ever consider HSBC again (dont get me started on that!!)

Gary

[jamie1183]

lol, I know what you mean.
They get even worse when you try to use their payment gateway, no php support and are useless.

[Fergus]

Hi Fergus,

I will see what they say, to be honest I dont want to pay any setup charge so I will see what deal I can get.

Gary

Nice one,I shall be interested what they say to you.

[MikeH]

Shop around for your merchant account.You do not need touse your own bank as it will cost you so much more. A few percent may not seem a big deal per transaction but as your transactions increase it really does count. We have saved well over a thousand pounds by securing good rates.

And one more point - Streamline are a rip off!

Mike.

[garysumpter]

Mike.

Amen to that!!

So any recommendations for IMAs then? Who do you recommend?

Many Thanks

Gary

[MikeH]

Currently with Bank of Scotland. We only use them for our merchant account. No more than that. We stick with Abbey and Alliance and Leicester for general baking. Free for life and great interest rates on our savings.

[maruby]

I'm a fsb member and I use streamline with protx :)

[wormcity]

I use Lloyds cardnet - because they are affilated with Protx I got a better rate.
They also waivered the monthly minimum amount (£20) on my moto account.

I phoned all the companies and lloyds came out cheapest, annoyingly streamline have phoned me every single month trying to get my business, saying they can beat my present rates -
I keep telling them they should have given a better quote in the 1st place, but they still ring.

[Pelenna]

Am I right in that you don't now need a separate payment gateway with Streamline? I've been checking them out as I'm now a member of the fsb and I'm sure they used to have links to protx et al, but now they seem to do the whole package?

[garysumpter]

Oh the confusion!!!

[Christiane]

I have a standard merchant account with Streamline and when I signed up with Protx, I got the internet merchant account with Streamline too, they charged me £100 set up but higher fees as they have to assess the ''fraud aspect'' of the new account, I did argue that I already have lower rates on the other account, etc, to no avail. I have to wait 6 months (which is coming up soon) and if they don't lower the rates I might look elsewhere - a bit of a rip off at the moment as far as I am concerned! But saying that, can't fault their serivce, money is always in my bank account within 3 days.

[KidsBeeHappy]

I am very pleased to see this thread, I am with protx and streamline, and the FSB man is coming tomorrow. Do you think i'll get the discount applied to an existing contract?? Back to the streamline account manager!

[S4Computers]

Hey Gary, I feel your pain all our MA are with Streamline and we use them in conjunction with Protx. I find them incredibly (Streamline) frustrating to deal with and our account manager average at best, however we have found that once you get through the set up process that takes forever you really need to have very little contact with them except where negotiating better transaction rates when you are doing more volume.

My advise, for the time you will spend seeking out other vendors for your MA, stick with it, get set up and have contaact with them only when neccessary.

The brand is good if the account managers are ?*&*?

Phil

[visagephoto]

I am very pleased to see this thread, I am with protx and streamline, and the FSB man is coming tomorrow. Do you think i'll get the discount applied to an existing contract?? Back to the streamline account manager!

It states on the Streamline website, that existing merchants can have their rates re-assessed if they join an organisation which offers special rates.

[S4Computers]

Good info Alan... I will be on to my account manager tomorow for rate changes as we are joining FSB also

[willh]

Another vote for Cardnet here - never paid a setup charge, money is transferred promptly into our (Natwest) current account, and we use Protx for the transaction processing - who are very good. One of those things that got setup, and just works! If only everything was that simple.

[MikeH]

It states on the Streamline website, that existing merchants can have their rates re-assessed if they join an organisation which offers special rates.


We gave them the chance to reconsider their rates. They were not interested so we took our business elsewhere. Bye Bye Streamline.

[garysumpter]

Another vote for Cardnet here - never paid a setup charge, money is transferred promptly into our (Natwest) current account, and we use Protx for the transaction processing - who are very good. One of those things that got setup, and just works! If only everything was that simple.

How did you get a no-setup fee?

Sounds interesting!

[Fill-Your-World]

How did you get a no-setup fee?

Sounds interesting!

Yes I'd like to know that too! :p

I have Cardnet all ready to give the go ahead to, but am edging towards starting with PayPal Pro so I don't have to pay any set-up fees at the moment :rolleyes: But if you got Cardnet with no set-up fees, I am very interested to hear more about that! ;)

[garysumpter]

Ive called Cardnet and I will get a callback within 48 working hours.

That always annoys me, why on EARTH can they not spend 15 minutes talking to me straight away.

Grrrrrr

[IridiumCorp]

Gary,

Iridium has a buy group in place similar to the FSB. Currently we can broker you an account with Halifax Bank of Scotland.

Setup Fee : 0.00 GBP
Rates are Dependant on your circumstances. We also do a review 6 monthly so if you do a surge in growth the rates can be adjusted accordingly.

Setup time is about 2-3 weeks currently. Also all accounts submitted through are program go to reps allocated to Iridium. What this means is if you run into a hurdle we can help you resolve it direct with the rep. We know all the answers to the common problems and most can be resolved with some common sense.

email is : sean@iridiumcorp.co.uk

[willh]

Ref: No setup fee with Cardnet.

I can't remember exactly how we swung it but we had two major things in our favour.

1- We were with Worldpay, and Cardnet were on a big drive to increase their business. The rep who visited told me this and said that they wouldn't usually consider a company with less than 18 months trading (we'd been going for 6) but they were trying to win new clients.

2- I had the backing of a family friend and was sharing premises with one of his manufacturing companies. They were LTSB corporate clients (they're not any more...).

Probably a case of right place, right time.

[gibby]

intertsing thread

we have just got our account with streamline & protx running

they did take 3 weeks to get it setup but I have to say that dealing with streamline has been fantastic as they have been excellent on the phone & getting the account opened.
Really different to Lloyds who are an absolute pain when we have to try to speak to an account manager

we went through the FSB saving the £250+vat for setting up & got the free banking for life with the cooperative too

We did shop around for rates and found only paypal to be cheaper.
we have been using paypal for over a year and they are hopeless when things go wrong. We did try to upgrade to the PRO account but they really messed it up & we gave up in the end

G

[AdvantageDigitalMedia]

Just thought I would say we use PROTX to transact over £1m a year and we have found them excellent our merchant account is with HSBC who are pretty good. They implemented the 3rd Man processing system last year that caused a major issue (along with thousands of others) for 3 days but apart from that they have been faultless...I would suggest that you have a back up plan (we use PayPal) as an alternative for when you do really have issues (They are rare with PROTX though!).

Regards

Darren