Merchant accounts

[thekitchendesigner]

Any recommendations?

I bank with HSBC so will consider them. Anyone else got a merchant account with them and can share costs??

Any other good and fairly priced merchant accounts out there worth looking at??

Thanks

 

[alan888]

I will be interested in a merchant also !

Btw really nice web site did you design that yourself?

 

[thekitchendesigner]

Thanks alan! Not my own work, a top notch web designer!

 

I'm in the process of looking for a merchant account at the moment been waiting 2 weeks from Streamline for a quote

WorldPay wanted £350 setup + £30 every month, and some other percentages

Cardnet - £400 setup / 3.5% on all transactions

Currently looking into PayPals combined Merchant Account and Virtual Terminal

 

[mconridge]

I'm in the process of setting up with Protx. The fees are cheap and I've had some good feedback about them.

 

[thekitchendesigner]

Protx to a virtual terminal only service for £10 a month - no setup fee, no extra monthly charge, no transaction fee. This is for mail/fax orders or manual input.

You then need a seperate merchant account from elsewhere

 

[Julie]

I use WorldPay and have found them to be really easy and completely efficient but, as Carl says, they are not cheap. Also, when we go to exhibitions we sell loads of our books and it's a complete nightmare not having a traditional merchant account and so having to take people's credit card details and then entering them in online when we get back from the show.

I've spoken to a number of companies about a portable terminal but they've all needed a merchant account. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Julie

 

[Julie]

Oops. Forgot to say that, in the past, I've had merchant accounts with both Barclaycard and Streamline (NatWest). They were a NIGHTMARE to apply for and set up, really slow and ponderous -- but once we got the account it all became a lot easier. Perhaps things are different now that so many people are needing merchant accounts because of online trading. Hope so!

Julie

 

[thekitchendesigner]

I spoke to HSBC earlier about their 'Virtual terminal' and merchant account setup. Theres a discount on the setup fee from £200 to £100 until end of feb, then £20 a month plus transaction fees.

Virtual terminal would be for inputting mail/fax/email orders which is all i want it for, but maybe not for shows???

I think they're all similar, and where one charges less for transactions, they might have a higher setup fee. I might investigate HSBC further.

 

Thats very cheap!

 

[thekitchendesigner]

Yeah, sounded quite reasonable.

They said max fees were 4.9%, which is high, but that was max based £1000 a year. Debit cards were 54p max.

Thankfully numbers going through will be high which will bring fees down.

Gonna find out some more next week methinks

 

[Kidz Fashion Zone]

I spoke to HSBC earlier about their 'Virtual terminal' and merchant account setup. Theres a discount on the setup fee from £200 to £100 until end of feb, then £20 a month plus transaction fees.

Virtual terminal would be for inputting mail/fax/email orders which is all i want it for, but maybe not for shows???

I think they're all similar, and where one charges less for transactions, they might have a higher setup fee. I might investigate HSBC further.

I recently spoke to Barclays about a merchant account

they wanted £250 set up fee, then a monthly charge of £25 plus any VAT

card payments varied on the type of card, some were 34p per transaction and other were 3.4%

these figures are off the top of my head so don't quote me on it but they are pretty close

hope this helps

 

[Matt1959]

Join the FSB at a cost of about £130pa. Apart from a raft of useful benefits, you also get to set up a Streamline merchant account FREE because you are a member of the FSB. The normal wired in terminal is about £15 pcm and the portable one is about £24pcm. Rough prices so don't quote me, but this seems a really good deal to me. Transaction charges don't seem dear. Speak to Streamline customer services - they're really really helpful.

 

[Ozzy]

Matt beat me to it. I joined the FSB purely for the savings available on Streamline, which saved me a few grand a year. There is also a member on here who offers a service which shops around for merchant account saving. Sorry cant remember his name so hoping he'll pop in here soon, but he's based near me in Northampton and only charges a percentage of the savings he'll find you.

 

[Mobunti]

Hi

Have to admit we are also an FSB member but they told me that the merchant account deal was only for normal merchant accounts and not internet merchant accounts and so I ended up staying with Lloyds Cardnet because they couldnt beat the prices but it may be worth me speaking with them again. If anyone confirms whether the FSB "benefit" works with internet merchant accounts I'd be grateful.

I believe a chunk of the initial setup fee is actually payable to both Visa and Mastercard - I was told £100 each by Cardnet when we got card services several years ago, so unless things have changed, I'd expect some kind of initial fee for any kind of setup unless they are eager for your business and are prepared to waive the fee.

 

[AlphOmega]

I spoke to HSBC earlier about their 'Virtual terminal' and merchant account setup. Theres a discount on the setup fee from £200 to £100 until end of feb, then £20 a month plus transaction fees.

Nooooo! Suggest not using HSBC. Just recently was contracted to plug in the HSBC CPI payment system into a website, something I'll never want to ever do again.

You have to install C libraries on the server and have to generate an order hash before sending the info to HSBC terminal. Then if the hash does not match, there is no real documentation or support as to what is amiss. I worked it out but it took ages!

Also you have to add library paths to your server, and unless you have a dedicated server, or a very accomodating hosting provider, forget it!

The cost to get a developer to integrate the system for you will be much higher than say using protx due to the extra arseing about needed.

 

[Coding Monkey]

Nooooo! Suggest not using HSBC. Just recently was contracted to plug in the HSBC CPI payment system into a website, something I'll never want to ever do again.

The cost to get a developer to integrate the system for you will be much higher than say using protx due to the extra arseing about needed.

Oh, great. A client of ours, against our recommendation, just went and setup with HSBC. Thanks for the warning

 

[thekitchendesigner]

Nooooo! Suggest not using HSBC. Just recently was contracted to plug in the HSBC CPI payment system into a website, something I'll never want to ever do again.

You have to install C libraries on the server and have to generate an order hash before sending the info to HSBC terminal. Then if the hash does not match, there is no real documentation or support as to what is amiss. I worked it out but it took ages!

Also you have to add library paths to your server, and unless you have a dedicated server, or a very accomodating hosting provider, forget it!

The cost to get a developer to integrate the system for you will be much higher than say using protx due to the extra arseing about needed.

Overload of techtalk!

I only need it as a virtual terminal, i.e. for me to enter details 'backend' and dont need to integrate anything into my sites. I need the simplest form of card processing.

I'll be doing whats classed as mail/fax/phone order by inputting details myself. For this is believe i log on, enter details, payment dealt with. Dont need any pay online facility.

 

[thegateways]

http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/product_data.jsp

I think this can help you once you shortlisted few processor going through their review.

 

[gilesmay]

Matt beat me to it. I joined the FSB purely for the savings available on Streamline, which saved me a few grand a year. There is also a member on here who offers a service which shops around for merchant account saving. Sorry cant remember his name so hoping he'll pop in here soon, but he's based near me in Northampton and only charges a percentage of the savings he'll find you.

Thanks for the referral Ozzy. If anyone needs helps with a merchant account and fees please let me know. We negotiate rates for clients of all sizes. In one case we saved "a well known" internet sales only company 46%. We also have agreements with all banks that ensure no setup/joining fees are charged. If anyone would like more information please let me know.