Barclays MOTO Virtual Terminal - Good deal?

[martin_electrician]

I've just opened a new business a/c with Barclays and enquired about their MOTO virtual terminal so i can take card payments over the phone.

The new company is reselling used/new IT servers & parts (Business to Business), 30 day warranty, average transaction £300.

The deal Barclays have offered is:
£10 per month 18 month contract
No setup fee
14 day payment retainer
1.5% debit card, 2.25% credit card fee
Average time to setup a/c is 10 days

The fee's seem reasonable however the 14 day lead time to receive funds could tie up my cash flow if a large order came in

I asked if i could just open a merchant a/c with Barclays and use another company's virtual terminal. He said it would cost me twice as much as i would have to pay for a merchant a/c aswell as a virtual terminal and that i cant open a merchant a/c on its own which i found a bit confusing however i'm new to this so any advice taking into account i'm a new business with no trading history.

 

[Barry Seston]

Hey Martin,

18 Month contract
14 Day Settlement

The Rates are reasonable however, Consider the 18 Month contract and enquire if you can have a no Fixed term option because 10 Months down the line a 14 Day Settlement may not suit you.

eWAY Does offer a VT Pay as you go per hour - Cloud Freedom, I'm sure other Payment gateways must have good options too so it's not necessarily expensive to go with a third-party and may be best to at the very least receive the MSB Rates and will give you flexibility if you consider moving forward with Online Transactions too.

Great bank to work with however.

 

[snakeeyes121]

signup for this

https://mobile.worldpay.com/home

you get a virtual terminal with it, where you can take card payments as well, over the phone etc.

think of the device fee as a setup fee, although it could be handy having the chip / pin machine if you want to take payments face to face.

No long contracts, if you pay a fee of £6 a month, you can get the fees down to 1.95% across the board, so marginally higher on debit cards, slightly lower on credit cards.

payments are in your account in 3 or 4 days.

 

[allthebestuk]

I think you can open a merchant account with any bank so even though you have a bank account with Barclays you don't have to use them. We have a Lloyds Bus Account - streamline merchant account (NatWest I think) and then use SagePay for their MOTO terminal ( which is very easy to use) Our funds are in the bank within 2-3 days.

Hope that helps?

 

[Merchant UK]

signup for this

https://mobile.worldpay.com/home

you get a virtual terminal with it, where you can take card payments as well, over the phone etc.

think of the device fee as a setup fee, although it could be handy having the chip / pin machine if you want to take payments face to face.

No long contracts, if you pay a fee of £6 a month, you can get the fees down to 1.95% across the board, so marginally higher on debit cards, slightly lower on credit cards.

payments are in your account in 3 or 4 days.

I agree with this, I was going for barclays as its who i bank with, but worldpay is so much better and you get your money far quicker

 

[martin_electrician]

Thanks for the advice

With the worldpay i presume you dont need a merchant account and you dont have to wait longer than a week for your money?

I've read alot of bad reviews for worldpay holding onto your money for 30 days and can see it detailed on their website http://www.worldpay.com/support/bg/index.php?page=account&sub=finance&subsub=when&c=

 

[Merchant UK]

Thanks for the advice

With the worldpay i presume you dont need a merchant account and you dont have to wait longer than a week for your money?

I've read alot of bad reviews for worldpay holding onto your money for 30 days and can see it detailed on their website http://www.worldpay.com/support/bg/index.php?page=account&sub=finance&subsub=when&c=

With all of them you need a merchant account Worldpay use streamline which is owned by them, and you only wait a few days, but definitely less than a week. Yes thats the all in one package with you need to avoid, You need to set up the merchant account and Worldpay standard account seperately

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi Martin

Are you planning to take card payments F2F or over the phone only, you also need to consider the order value as if taking large payments you need to consider the security / fraud risk.

e.g. a Chip & PIN terminal will allow you to use PIN number and therefore any potential fraud liability will revert to the card issuer from yourself in the case of a chargeback situation. This is not the case with a virtual terminal.

In either case you will need a Merchant account to process the payments and transfer the resultant funds to you business account, your second choice is then whether you go virtual (e.g. web portal) or physical with a mobile terminal and the associated leasing agreement.

You can get a virtual terminal with no contract and a merchant account but sometimes there is a setup fee as there is no underlying lease agreement to fund the set up fees.

I would avoid SagePay as their gateway is not the most reliable and is expensive on monthly fees, compared to others.

Re the retention periods, this will depend on the Merchant provider and their appetite fro Risk, Barclays are well known for putting up to 390 days payment delays on New To Card Businesses, but not all as are painful..

I would suggest you start out with a PAYG solution such as JudoPay ( google it..) to start with and if the usage takes off then invest in a conventional merchant account, hope this helps.

Please PM me if you want to find out more ?

Kind regards

Mark

 

[martin_electrician]

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately Judo is too restrictive and costly (2.9%+25p), £200 transaction limit and £1000 per month sales limit

I've applied for the Worldpay pay as you go £6 month tariff so fingers crossed it gets approved and processed within the next couple of weeks

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi Martin

Good luck then, however Judo can be expanded to up to £ 2,500 per month transactions limit and an individual transaction limit of £ 700 however the boarding fee increases to £ 75.

We can also have you up and running in 24 hours..

You will also need to ensure you become PCI Compliant or you will be fined.. the grace period is normally 90 days from contract signature.

Also check with Worldpay re limits and funding delays, according to their website even on the all you can eat plan at £ 12.99 per month they mention that you may be charged additional fees if you exceed
£ 1,000 per month in transactions..

Finally make sure of what their minimum contract period is.

Hope it all goes well for you however, just make sure you read all the small, print especially re charges and additional fees..

Kind regards

Mark