PSP / bureau / Internet merchant account help

[chris08]

Hello all,

I'm new to the forum - I've been reading loads of previous threads and they have been a massive help. I was hoping I could appeal to your collective genius for help about adding payment processing to my site.

The problem is that I have spoken to around 6 major UK banks about merchant services but so far they have turned me down because of a lack of trading history (the business is not yet live). I was wondering if anyone knew of any banks that might be more flexible?

Otherwise, I am starting to look at payment bureaux.

The key points for my business are:
- Low transaction charges are critical to the success of the business. I am aiming for under 3.5% for credit cards and around 50p for debit cards. If I could at least offer cheaper debit card transactions, that would be a big benefit.
- Due to the nature of the business (lots of non web-savvy users), the payment processing must be seamlessly integrated (e.g. an XML / API solution would be ideal).
- I expect turnover to be reasonably high - over £250K per year.

I am now considering:
- Any more flexible merchant accounts??
- Securetrading merchant account.
- Optimal payments.
- Paypoint.
- WorldPay.
- Not Paypal as it must be seamlessly integrated (not even Payment Pro - as you have to put Paypal buttons etc. on the site).

Any views on the above or other suggestions? Your help would be much appreciated!

 

[PayVector]

I am aiming for under 3.5% for credit cards and around 50p

Those fees for 250k turnover are very high. You should be aiming for around 2-2.5% credit and 25-30p debit.

 

[chris08]

I agree that the charges are high. I would expect lower charges from a merchant account but I haven't had any success applying. Any thoughts on a provider that might be more flexible?

 

[chris08]

After discussing with Sean at Iridium (very helpful guy - Iridium gets a gold star ), it sounds like I may need to go down the bureau route. Is anyone getting good rates - e.g. below 3% - from their bureau?

 

[Megahertz]

My advice would be to get a merchant account if you can - let it run for a few months then try to negotiate your rates down once you have some history. Once you have some figures you can shop around - if your current provider thinks you are leaving they might give you better rates (although the banks are far from predictable at the moment!)