Accepting CC payments

robindunne1

I've just started business and I'm looking at opening a bank account that will accept credit card payments. I assume that I will need to open a business account.

At the moment, the website I run will only take Paypal payments so I want to find a way of getting round the admin fee that paypal charge. I know there is a charge associated with receiving credit card payments, but I assume it will not be as big as Paypal fees.

I would appreciate it if anyone knows of any good business bank accounts and also what kind of fees there are.

Thanks.

Tea3

Hi there may be a quicker or easier way to do it but from advice we got, to accept cards online you need
Business bank account
You can set this up with any bank you choose e.g. lloyds, abbey etc, but shop around as they often do free banking deals (be careful as some of the free banking ones dont give you interest on your balance either so you may be better opening a business account (no interest/no charges) and a business savings account (low or no charges + you get interest).
Merchant account
only certain banks do these such as lloyds, bank of scotland etc
Check the rates for debit cards (normally a set fee per transaction) and credit cards (normally a percentage per transaction). There is often a set up fee of around £150 to start the account, but haggle! I found that by checking prices with three banks and then phoning each in turn they all matched or bettered the previous banks transaction fees and set up fee.
Also if you take telephone orders you may need to have a seperate 'moto' (mail order telephone order) account as most of the banks say you cannot use a normal internet/ecommerce account to accept phone orders - again haggle! We hardly use our moto account so dont get charged a monthly fee for it. (Merchant Accounts often have a minimum monthly fee and from experience they dont tend to tell you this straight off so ask them about it).
Payment gateway
such as streamline, protx etc.
Again check the cost per transaction rate and some of these companies arrange a 'small business' system where you maybe pay £20 per month for 1000 transaction etc. Some companies do a combined merchant account and payment gateway system but check the rates as these are not always the cheapest option.

It sounds like a lot of outlay but it does work out cheaper for us than paypal, and we can still offer paypal as an option for people who have paypal accounts and prefer to use them.

If you are a new business please contact the Business Gateway - they set up lots of things for us, gave us £1000 grant and to this day still help us with problems or questions re vat, premises etc - and all for free!
I wont mention my business name here as not on to advertise but if you pm me I will help you with any questions I can and let you know which companies we found to be the cheapest (not an expert but realise how daunting it was setting up my card payment system)

Also if you have a shopping cart check their forums as they should say which payment gateways they have modules for e.g. they may have modules for protx and worldpay but maybe not streamline so it would be hard to incorporate that payment system into your cart (instead of just installing a module).

Sorry for the long post - its a lot to consider going to card payments and just wanted to make you aware of some of the catches like minimum monthly costs etc and not be surprised by them as we were. Now if someone comes along and posts theres a 5 min way to organise it all I will scream lol as it took me weeks

jimmybrayks

I just setup to take credit cards over the phone with PayPal, i think its £20 charge per month and then a percentage on each sale... certinaly easier than sorting merchants / gateways etc etc...

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_vt_hub-outside

Tooticky

It's also worth noting that often business have to have been trading for a while or have a provable reasonable income to get a merchant account.

Many banks will also ask for a bond. Which is usually around one months expected turnover where you might be expected to wait 30 days before they release the money and this can be a cash flow nightmare. (But not all so do shop around).

As with anything banking the processing rates are negotiable, oh and be wary of taking American express cards as they sting you on the rates and hold on to funds much longer, don't worry about losing revenue, because most people with american express cards know that no one takes them so they're bound to have a back up.

HEADACHE

thanks for the paypal info.A merchant account is £25 per month and the setup fee is £175 with Lloyds Cardnet.Then the swiping machine is another £30 a month on top.Its all fees fees fees.I dont mind having to pay fees but its the size of them which annoys me.

justpaper

you might wanna sign up to the fsb.org.uk - as alot of people sign up for the discount CC processing,.

its been covered in here some where