Credit Card Clearing - UK Merchant Account

External Since: Jun 25, 2004 Posts: 2

I'm setting up a website to take monthly subscriptions via credit
cards (around 1000 a month, we hope!, and about £10 each but probably
some in other currencies).

As I already have a business account with Barclays I've applied for a
merchant account with them. However their rates seem a bit high:
3.94% for credit card clearance and if I use the ePDQ service than
another 2% (dropping to 1% if I clear more than 10K/month). Also
because I'm selling a subscription they are going to defer payments to
me for one month.

Barclays + ePDQ: 5.94%

I was just reading the WorldPay website and their charges appear
lower. If I take out their merchant account and their subscription
billing package then it ammounts to the following:

WorldPay: 4.5%

So apart from how long the deferred period would be with Worldpay it
seems to be a more cost effective solution.

Am I missing something basic here? Could anyone give me their
personal perspective on the other UK banks and also on the banks vs
WorldPay?

James

External Since: Jun 28, 2003 Posts: 98

On 25 Jun 2004 03:58:35 -0700, jamesm_2000.RemoveThis@hotmail.com (James Martin)
wrote:

>I'm setting up a website to take monthly subscriptions via credit
>cards (around 1000 a month, we hope!, and about £10 each but probably
>some in other currencies).
>
>As I already have a business account with Barclays I've applied for a
>merchant account with them. However their rates seem a bit high:
>3.94% for credit card clearance and if I use the ePDQ service than
>another 2% (dropping to 1% if I clear more than 10K/month). Also
>because I'm selling a subscription they are going to defer payments to
>me for one month.
>
>Barclays + ePDQ: 5.94%
>
>I was just reading the WorldPay website and their charges appear
>lower. If I take out their merchant account and their subscription
>billing package then it ammounts to the following:
>
>WorldPay: 4.5%
>
>So apart from how long the deferred period would be with Worldpay it
>seems to be a more cost effective solution.
>
>Am I missing something basic here? Could anyone give me their
>personal perspective on the other UK banks and also on the banks vs
>WorldPay?
>
>James

That sounds very steep.
You should be able to get 2.5% easily. Try Lloyds Cardnet and Protx.

We are internet only retailers and can get 1.6% with cardnet, and
started off at 1.9% (Sterling).

If you are going to fork out the set-up fee with a merchant bank, the
least I would expect from them is 2.5%.
When we spoke to Barclays they were awful and wanted to hold our money
for 45 days! No clue.