Payment Card Readers

[Luckyphil]

Hi Guys

Looking for a heads up , I’m a self employed Sparkie , and I’m getting more Customers wanting to pay by Card , in the past it was maybe once every 6 months , now it’s almost weekly , so who’s using these & which is the best to go with , and what are approximate costs ??

I expect to do Transactions of around £400 to £500 3 or 4 times a month to start with .... and then see how it goes , with cheques possibly being phased out I need to sort things out

Thanks in anticipation

Phil

 

[JohnD]

I think you'd do well to start by consulting your bank. They will have standards and procedures that your cardreader will have to meet, to pay the money into your account. They're sure to have been through this before.

If they're awkward, other banks may be more geared up to the small business.

 

[999]

With banking apps on the increase can you not get them to pay using their banking app?
The way i get round this is to invoice them with my bank details and say i dont take card payments, seems to work for me and i dont then incur banking charges.

A friend of mine took a mobile card reader but quickly stopped using it as the charges wasnt great, he also didnt realise he signed a 3 year deal to rent the card reader

 

[SammyInnit]

The mother in law uses iZettle. App is free, reader £30 and transaction fee stands at 1.75% but there are different packages depending on what you want.

There's also sum-up and they charge £70 for a reader and 1.69% but there may be other fees I'm not aware of.

 

[JohnD]

Customers who pay you with a credit card get valuable protection if, for example, you go bust or run off to Torremolinos with the money. If they pay a 3rd-party payment handler, they lose that protection. Canny customers will be aware of that.

 

[HawkEye244]

BACS transfer to difficult ?

 

[SammyInnit]

BACS transfer to difficult ?

Some people just aren't into banking online.

 

[noseall]

BACS transfer

That's the way we rock.

 

[EddieM]

That's the way we rock.

Not FPS?

 

[noseall]

Not FPS?

What's FPS?

 

[EddieM]

What's FPS?

Faster payments service. (almost, not guaranteed, instant payment)

 

[noseall]

Faster payments service. (almost, not guaranteed, instant payment)

Yeah, I could live with that. BACS doesn't seem all that slow to me or am I missing a trick?

 

[EddieM]

Yeah, I could live with that. BACS doesn't seem all that slow to me or am I missing a trick?

It's quite probably an FPS payment. BACS is 3 days.

 

[Mw Roofline]

90% or the time we do bacs, years ago bacs would take days. We’re Lloyd’s and a Lloyd’s customer payment is instant, other banks are usually a few hours or so, some other banks and it’s in the morning. We’ve never waited more than half a day for our money. We hit the customer with a 2% charge for cards.

 

[EddieM]

90% or the time we do bacs, years ago bacs would take days. We’re Lloyd’s and a Lloyd’s customer payment is instant, other banks are usually a few hours or so, some other banks and it’s in the morning. We’ve never waited more than half a day for our money. We hit the customer with a 2% charge for cards.

BACS hasn't got any quicker, it's deliberately designed to take a couple of days (for the banks benefit of course) it's largely been superceded by FPS. Then of course for the big transactions there's CHAPS. (but that incurs large charges and is generally for large, very large, amounts of money, think at a min of at least hundreds of thousands )