Business banking and taking card payments advice please

[zed4]

Hi everyone,

I’d like some help and advice regarding business banking and accepting card payment. At present we have nothing as we’re a new start-up.

We need a bank account firstly, we also need to accept card payments. This will be in person, so using chip and pin. At present we don’t have/need to take payments online. We do need to be able to take pre-authorisations for deposits. This is very important.

Can any recommend a company in particular? I’ve been looking at Streamline and I’m waiting for them to come back to me with their pricing. But I’m also looking at the Paypal system, Paypal Here. Their little card reader is quite neat and uses your mobile phone’s data connection. The cost is 2.75% per transaction plus £50 for the device. I’m thinking I will setup a Paypal business account anyway. Any experience?

Any help would be much appreciated!!

Thanking you in advance,

Dan

[Bigbox]

zed4 said:

Hi everyone,

I’d like some help and advice regarding business banking and accepting card payment. At present we have nothing as we’re a new start-up.

We need a bank account firstly, we also need to accept card payments. This will be in person, so using chip and pin. At present we don’t have/need to take payments online. We do need to be able to take pre-authorisations for deposits. This is very important.

Can any recommend a company in particular? I’ve been looking at Streamline and I’m waiting for them to come back to me with their pricing. But I’m also looking at the Paypal system, Paypal Here. Their little card reader is quite neat and uses your mobile phone’s data connection. The cost is 2.75% per transaction plus £50 for the device. I’m thinking I will setup a Paypal business account anyway. Any experience?

Any help would be much appreciated!!

Thanking you in advance,

Dan

Depending on your margins and frequency of transactions, i'd consider 2.75% cost per transaction to be quite high. I too have been looking into how to manage pre-authorisations for my start-up however unless you're in the hotel industry then you'll find it difficult, at least this was the advice from Barclays.
I opened a bank account with Nat West and am linked in with their WorldPay service (was streamline) so i can take payments over the phone and potentially online in the future. I was assured that i could pre-authorise indefinitely however it turns out this is false. Pre-auth only last for a few days, a week at most before the recipient's bank can revoke the holding charge against your bank.

The only way around this is to actually take the deposit to your account. With WorldPay, the amount you charge against the customer's card remains open for refund which is what we're going to use to refund what we had specced as a pre auth. Also this does not count as an additional transaction and therefore doesn't cost you twice. We also get 350 transactions free per month too.

Hope this has helped, if anyone knows how to get around the pre-auth for non hotel businesses i'd like to hear more too!

[threesixty]

We use global payments services (used to be part of HSBC) we get 30days pre auth on every transaction.

[zed4]

Thanks for the replies so far. I am planning on having a meeting with HSBC later this week.

[avinalarf]

zed4 said:

Thanks for the replies so far. I am planning on having a meeting with HSBC later this week.

Have a look at bira,a trade association.
You an get some deals on rates through HSBC and other products.

[OllieC]

threesixty said:

We use global payments services (used to be part of HSBC) we get 30days pre auth on every transaction.

I cant remember what length of time the pre-auth we get with Global payments is, but its longer than 30 days...

No complaints about their service generally, help desk is crap though (offshore)

[mlatham]

I work in the merchant services industry. Happy to give you some advice / help you compare the quotes you receive. I would be clear on what you want, how and where you want to take payments and understand how the services are priced before you talk to people as some providers make it seem very complex (more than necessary). I can point you at a few free guides which help you compare what's out there if you want.

[scdan4]

santander bank account and an iZettle.

iZettle is free if you have the santander bank account (you get a credit to it afterwards).

2.75% fee on transactions, but no other costs and no contract.

Working well for us.

[mlatham]

scdan4 said:

santander bank account and an iZettle.

iZettle is free if you have the santander bank account (you get a credit to it afterwards).

2.75% fee on transactions, but no other costs and no contract.

Working well for us.

iZettle fine for low ish volume/turnover on cards, but very expensive compared to "traditional" merchant account prices and chip and PIN machine at higher turnover levels.

Can't really comment on the bank account side as don't know much about that. My wife uses Natwest which has been fine for her (basic) business banking needs.

[melhookv12]

scdan4 said:

santander bank account and an iZettle.

iZettle is free if you have the santander bank account (you get a credit to it afterwards).

2.75% fee on transactions, but no other costs and no contract.

Working well for us.

Are you using izettle in a mobile environment?
Have you had any problems with app crashing or reader not working.
I started a similar thread and one person had a bad experience with izettle.

[The Tea Boy]

melhookv12 said:

Are you using izettle in a mobile environment?
Have you had any problems with app crashing or reader not working.
I started a similar thread and one person had a bad experience with izettle.

I have an iZettle I use in my shop and mobile (Ihairdresser) had it for abot 6months now and very very impressed never had any problems at all

Matt

[scdan4]

melhookv12 said:

scdan4 said:

santander bank account and an iZettle.

iZettle is free if you have the santander bank account (you get a credit to it afterwards).

2.75% fee on transactions, but no other costs and no contract.

Working well for us.

Are you using izettle in a mobile environment?
Have you had any problems with app crashing or reader not working.
I started a similar thread and one person had a bad experience with izettle.

Not used in a mobile environment - it is static in a shop running via a smartphone to our own wifi. We shut both off at night and restart in the morning - if we don't then there are occasional problems connecting encountered.

Can't speak for the costs - we have sproadically lots of low value transactions - the iZettle suits us well.

[Snollygoster]

Hi Dan,

I can't remember the details but will do some digging tomorrow.

A couple of years back we switched from Streamline to Elavon as they were slightly cheaper. They also had a deal with some Verifone contactless readers at the time.

[speedchick]

I have an iZettle reader, I bought it in April, so far it has attended a few craft fairs with me and has paid for itself. Last event I was at, if it wasn't for being able to take cards I would have lost out on a £45 sale, which made all the difference to the days takings.

Saying that, I am only a little one person crafter, so am not looking at taking hundreds in a day (although that would be a nice dream), I also like the fact that the sale was on the Saturday and the money in my bank on the Tuesday