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Alternative merchant account

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J

jwood

Hi,

We are a new business just about to startup and we've just had our application for a merchant account with Barclaycard turned down because we are a new business and will take all payments online (cardholder not present). This has dealt quite a blow to our plans as we were planning on launching the company this week.

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on where we might get a merchant account? I think high street banks are ruled out as they will tell us the same thing that Barclaycard told us and we can't afford to wait another 3 weeks to be told no.

Thanks in advance,

J
 
Did they tell you why they had declined the application? i.e. nature of the business, projected turnover etc. It may be that other banks would accept you even if Barclays wouldn't. We have had merchants turned down in the past by Barclays that have then gone down the FSB/Streamline route and managed to get signed up so this might be worth considering.

If you use our payment gateway for cnp then it will often work out cheaper than the banks own solution meaning you just use them for the merchant account. Feel free to visit our website (link in signature) to find out more about our solutions.

Thanks,

Simon
 
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The only reason that they could give was that we have no trading history and that all our payments are done online (CNP).

With your payment gateway, is it possible to do recurring billing? The provider we are currently hoping to use allows us to submit details as a 'pre auth' and receive a reference which we can bill against each month (we are a monthly subscription service). We have done all the integration work to work on this basis and we would like to keep the flow as much as possible.

Thanks
 
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It could be the subscriptions bit that is the deciding factor as far as the banks are concerned. We have been advised in the past by our contacts within the banks that it is classed as high-risk for a new startup to be doing subscription payments, due to the increased chance of chargebacks.

We do not currently process subscription or pre-auth but it is something we plan to introduce this year.

I wish you the best of luck in your search.
 
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I think you may be right there. We actually have a merchant account with RBS Worldpay but the interface and support are useless which is why we are trying to move away from them. Is it possible to use the merchant account we have with RBS with another payment provider? I'm struggling to understand how the two tie together at the moment.
 
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Worldpay is the gateway but ultimately it is Streamline who provide the merchant ID. As Streamline are owned by RBS (at the moment) you would need to contact RBS about changing the gateway associated with the merchant ID. We have had plenty of clients with a Streamline merchant ID change to us from Worldpay, SagePay etc it is just a case of the merchant requesting it.
 
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I've just called Worldpay and it seems we have the former meaning we cannot use another payment service with our account.

Thanks for the link, that seems like a very attractive alternative. I'm reading through the website now.
 
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Hi there

A lot of high street banks tend to avoid start up businesses or companies with limited trading history, leaving only limited options for companies like yours.

We deal with start ups and new businesses everyday, as well as supporting monthly subscriptions, so may be able to help. PM us your details and we can point you in the right direction.

Hope this helps

Etienne
 
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jwood said:
I've just called Worldpay and it seems we have the former meaning we cannot use another payment service with our account.

Thanks for the link, that seems like a very attractive alternative. I'm reading through the website now.
Click to expand...
Worldpay as a payment system is expensive, but if you have already paid any setup costs I would suggest you use that as your payment provider for 6-12 months as it will work pretty much like an intergrated payment system depending on how you set it up (i think) then go back to the bank after you have a trading history

If you haven't paid anything to worldpay then look at alternatives like paypoint, again you can always build up a trading history then approach the banks later on. You might find you don't need to.
 
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jwood said:
Hi,

We are a new business just about to startup and we've just had our application for a merchant account with Barclaycard turned down because we are a new business and will take all payments online (cardholder not present). This has dealt quite a blow to our plans as we were planning on launching the company this week.

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on where we might get a merchant account? I think high street banks are ruled out as they will tell us the same thing that Barclaycard told us and we can't afford to wait another 3 weeks to be told no.

Thanks in advance,

J
Click to expand...

Hi J

This is a strange one. We went to them without any trading history and only take CNP as a hosting company and got accepted right away.

We just opened a Barclays business bank account too just before so maybe that might be the best way to go about it first. Also you know you can do CNP via paypal. They offer a merchant account called Paypal payments pro. I do hate paypal but it might be your best shot.

Regards
 
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Take a look at the PaymentSense offering, we are independent from the banks and have easier paths to setup - quite often we can supply services even where you have been rejected by the banks. PaymentSense are also cheaper than direct bank-associated services as you are not tied into needing a business bank account and merchant services with the same provider. HTH
 
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BenKirkwood said:
Take a look at the PaymentSense offering, we are independent from the banks and have easier paths to setup - quite often we can supply services even where you have been rejected by the banks. PaymentSense are also cheaper than direct bank-associated services as you are not tied into needing a business bank account and merchant services with the same provider. HTH
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Do you offer merchant accounts for "high risk" transactions? Specifically insurance sales online? My business sells insurance policies online, we are an AR of a FSA regulated insurance company, accept payment for annual policies in the region of £25 - £150, and turnover around £250K pa. We are looking at separating the insurance business into a new company, and our current provider wants to stiff us for high fees and slow settlement, even though we have been with them for 4 years and have very very low chargebacks.
 
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GeoMal said:
Do you offer merchant accounts for "high risk" transactions? Specifically insurance sales online? My business sells insurance policies online, we are an AR of a FSA regulated insurance company, accept payment for annual policies in the region of £25 - £150, and turnover around £250K pa. We are looking at separating the insurance business into a new company, and our current provider wants to stiff us for high fees and slow settlement, even though we have been with them for 4 years and have very very low chargebacks.
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It is possible though best to call to find out for sure, the definition for "high risk" varies across the industry and specific providers - I don't know too much about the criteria for online insurance but as an established business already with merchant services in place it should be possible to switch out easier as you have long trading history etc.
 
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BenKirkwood said:
It is possible though best to call to find out for sure, the definition for "high risk" varies across the industry and specific providers - I don't know too much about the criteria for online insurance but as an established business already with merchant services in place it should be possible to switch out easier as you have long trading history etc.
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Thanks, I'll call your sales team. The problem we seem to be facing is that as we are moving the website into a new ltd company the providers are ignoring the history of sales...
 
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