Accept Credit Cards Resources

The following resources all relate to accepting credit cards and are a collection of website's which may be of interest to users of our site.

ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS:

Traditional card payments take place offline.
Offline Electronic payments are common and need you to have a Merchant Service and PDQ machine from your acquiring bank.

- Merchant service: this is the generic term for the service provided by banks that allow you to ‘swipe' credit and debit cards at your place of business.

- PDQ machine: this generic term for the machine that is used to ‘swipe' a credit or debit card.

- Acquiring bank: once you have ‘swiped' the card, the customer's details are passed to an acquiring bank for processing. The acquiring bank checks the details of the card and authorizes the transaction. The acquiring bank is the bank that provides your merchant service.

Setting up offline electronic payment:

- Apply to a bank for a merchant service.

- Negotiate the costs.

- On acceptance, pay the set-up costs.

- Receive and install a PDQ machine.

- ‘Swipe' the customer's card to collect their credit or debit card details.

- Wait while the card details are passed to the for approval.

- Ask the customer to sign the sales voucher.

- Verify the signature and process the payment.

- A transaction charge is automatically paid to the acquiring bank.

- The customer leaves with the goods or service.

For electronic payment in a shop, the customer is present to sign the sales voucher. If the transaction takes place via the phone or the Internet, the customer is not present so there is an increased fraud risk.

A Payment Bureau is a one-stop solution collecting and processing the card details on behalf of the business without requiring a Merchant Account with an Acquiring Bank or a separate Payment Service Provider to be set up. These bureau services are a popular choice for online payments and an ideal solution for a SMEs first step into e-commerce.

A bureau collects funds via credit or debit cards using its own acquiring service. The bureau collects money for multiple retailers to achieve the trading volumes necessary to make the service profitable. The bureaux in the UK will generally accept most types of business with a business bank account and an address that confirms the identity of the business.

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