Elavon, Aib & Ulster Bank Merchant Accounts

turbo

Hi

i'm looking into setting up a merchant account with either Elavon or AIB for an online venture. Elavon seem to have a lower % on credit cards, ~2.2% v 3%

Have heard its a little more difficult setting up a Elavon a/c ???

[EDIT] have just come across Ulster bank merchant services so we can add them into the mix.....

Any info greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Turbo

anonimoose

tell me what type of business you are (what you're selling etc) and I'll let you know straight away what your likelihood of approval with Elavon is.

podgeen

I have clients have difficulties with AIB, others difficulties with Elavon so on. As anonimoose said it really depends on the nature of your business, your trading history or if it is a new business then your business plan and projections for the next few years.

The merchant account guide on webpayments.ie (my site) might be useful to you.

turbo

hi

its a service based site, users will be able to store data and we will provide reports and other info on the data. The payment model will be based on monthly recurring payments.

di11on

If it's a web based business, Elavon may want to impose a 5 day settlement delay on you which isn't good for cashflow.

I found Ulsterbank very good.

turbo

podgeen wrote: »

.......

The merchant account guide on webpayments.ie (my site) might be useful to you.

i've tried to register on your site last week and a few weeks ago, have also emailed feedback and filled in web query form.......havent heard back..

podgeen

Hi Turbo,

Apologies for the delay in responding. I'm in China at the moment so not online as much as usual. I checked my spam folder and found the email you sent to feedback. I'm not sure why you couldn't register. I'll email you to see if we can figure out why.

Thanks,
Dave

unhappycamper

Just in the painful process of setting up with a merchant and it is a pain in the backside. So much paper work is required with the added bonus of having to pull all my business details out of the closet. I am not enjoying the process whatsoever.

anonimoose

turbo wrote: »

hi

its a service based site, users will be able to store data and we will provide reports and other info on the data. The payment model will be based on monthly recurring payments.

if Elavon's underwriters approve your application (they may not), then it will likely be with delayed funding of about a month. With Elavon, whenever there are deposits or advance payments being taken prior to the supply of the goods or services, they'll look to delay your funding to cover the time period involved. So for example if you were selling books, and customers got their books two days after paying on the website, Elavon would look for 3 days funding delay on your account. With subscription based services they consider the length of the subscription to be the "delay period", so in this case a month.

As an online business too your website will need to meet their ecommerce criteria before the sales guys are even allowed submit your application to their underwriters for review. They need to be able to log on to your test site and see things like terms and conditions, privacy policy, refund / cancellation policy, a tick box during the ordering process which customers have to tick to indicate they accept your terms and conditions, and a couple other things.

If you're operating from a residential address they'll also need you to supply a reference letter from your bank.

Of course, once you've done all that and your application is put before the underwriters, they may still decline it.

Its certainly not a fast process. You wouldn't want to be in too much of a hurry.

turbo

anonimoose wrote: »

if Elavon's underwriters approve your application (they may not), then it will likely be with delayed funding of about a month. With Elavon, whenever there are deposits or advance payments being taken prior to the supply of the goods or services, they'll look to delay your funding to cover the time period involved. So for example if you were selling books, and customers got their books two days after paying on the website, Elavon would look for 3 days funding delay on your account. With subscription based services they consider the length of the subscription to be the "delay period", so in this case a month.

As an online business too your website will need to meet their ecommerce criteria before the sales guys are even allowed submit your application to their underwriters for review. They need to be able to log on to your test site and see things like terms and conditions, privacy policy, refund / cancellation policy, a tick box during the ordering process which customers have to tick to indicate they accept your terms and conditions, and a couple other things.

If you're operating from a residential address they'll also need you to supply a reference letter from your bank.

Of course, once you've done all that and your application is put before the underwriters, they may still decline it.

Its certainly not a fast process. You wouldn't want to be in too much of a hurry.

Hi, thanks for all the info, seems like a lengthly process but if its gotta be done its gotta be done! I wish paypal was more advanced, would make it so much more easier. We're still in early development so we'll keep working away and once we have a good beta ready we will start the application process........

ardale

anonimoose wrote: »

on to your test site and see things like terms and conditions, privacy pol, a tick box during the ordering process which customers have to tick to indicate they accept your terms and conditions, and a couple other things.

I was wondering about this, I have just gone down the route of getting a Internet merchant account and one of the criteria for getting it is to have this tick box. I feel this might put off prospective customers as you don't really see it done that often. Anyways, forgive me if this is a stupid question, whats to stop me from having it there until I get the merchant account and then just turning that option/step off in the order process?
most sites state in their terms and conditions "by shopping at XYZ.com, you agree to the terms set out below..."
Any thoughts folks?

91011

turbo wrote: »

Hi

i'm looking into setting up a merchant account with either Elavon or AIB for an online venture. Elavon seem to have a lower % on credit cards, ~2.2% v 3%

Have heard its a little more difficult setting up a Elavon a/c ???

[EDIT] have just come across Ulster bank merchant services so we can add them into the mix.....

Any info greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Turbo

Haggle with them - good haggling and your rate will come down to 1.5% + under 20c for laser, no monthly fee and about €20 / month for the terminal.

J_Wholesale

ardale wrote: »

I was wondering about this, I have just gone down the route of getting a Internet merchant account and one of the criteria for getting it is to have this tick box. I feel this might put off prospective customers as you don't really see it done that often. Anyways, forgive me if this is a stupid question, whats to stop me from having it there until I get the merchant account and then just turning that option/step off in the order process?
most sites state in their terms and conditions "by shopping at XYZ.com, you agree to the terms set out below..."
Any thoughts folks?

The checkbox really doesn't make any difference to customers. We had to add one when we went with Elavon, and saw no drop in sales as a result.

NCG

It might be worth looking at www.luceytecnology.com. They seem to offer good rates and are Irish. I know a bit about their background but have no connection other than using a few of their services.

Herbalist

It would be worth contacting Sage Pay. Sage Pay saves you money on your transactions as the moto offering (25 euro a month) has no set up fee and includes 1000 free transactions a quarter.

Some other payment options will also allow you an allocation of free transactions a month / quarter included in your fee. However some offer none at all included in the monthly fee and charge extra for every transaction so it is definately worth factoring in when getting pricing - its not just the monthly or quarterly fee you need to look at but how many transactions are included free of charge and how much it costs per transaction once you have used up your allocation.

Sage Pay can advise and assist you in applying for a merchant account with Elavon or with your bank

aidan.connolly

+1

I am with Sagepay. Very helpful. Not connected

Aidan

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

We also use SagePay and Elavon.

One other thing to consider is how you integrate the payments. My advice to you is to redirect it out to sagepay at their own servers rather than your site taking the details and sending them across. PCI compliance can be an expensively impossible task at times for small businesses if they are handling payments themselves.

ardale

Gamesnash.ie (Pat) wrote: »

We also use SagePay and Elavon.

One other thing to consider is how you integrate the payments. My advice to you is to redirect it out to sagepay at their own servers rather than your site taking the details and sending them across. PCI compliance can be an expensively impossible task at times for small businesses if they are handling payments themselves.

Do you mind me asking, what rates are Elavon charging you?

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

pm sent

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Avoid AIB Merchants for e-business. My experiences were horrific with them, they are very difficult to deal with and I found the staff very under-educated about e-commerce. They enforced rules without knowing what the wording means and literally had threatened to put me out of business with 24 hours notice if I didn't change my business model to suit their outdated way of doing business; luckily the financial regulators rules saved my business from going under before it got going; but its just not worth the sleepless nights.

Also another business I acquired recently has been told the are contractually committed to a POS terminal and will have to pay a hefty cost just to move to another provider.

ardale

Thanks for the replies guys, keep em coming!?

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Hey all,

I would like to take back my recommendation for using Elavon, after having worked with them for two years and enjoyed great service. Yesterday I found out something very disturbing about the way they have been dealing with one of my new accounts and have reported them to the Financial Ombudsman.

Its an issue that could have caused the business that owned the account to go bust so please ignore my earlier recommendation and make your own decision as to whos the best of the bad bunch on offer. As far as im concerned now, all merchant bankers are as crooked and underhanded as each other and get away with breaking the laws of the state because of the complexity for the layman to understand the rules which they would otherwise be legally obliged to follow. :mad:

writhen

So you know.....
I had intended to use Sage Pay with Ulster Bank Merchant Services, however there are issues between the two over laser payments. Don't know what it is - but I ended up having to go with Realex. No problems so far.

lecheile

As a slight aside, if you have been with a merchant service provider for a while and have not negotiated rates or shopped around - you should do it!! I have had experience with three such merchants who reduced monthly cost by between 15 and 20% by switching. They also got new shiny terminals and additional functions into the deal. Worth making a few calls.

blobert

writhen wrote: »

So you know.....
I had intended to use Sage Pay with Ulster Bank Merchant Services, however there are issues between the two over laser payments. Don't know what it is - but I ended up having to go with Realex. No problems so far.

Am a bit concerned by this as am in the latter stages of setting up a store using the Sage Pay with Ulster Bank Merchant Services. Using Sagepay is the only option with my cart software so if I can't get the 2 working it will be a serious issue.

Do you know what the problem was with this?

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

blobert wrote: »

Am a bit concerned by this as am in the latter stages of setting up a store using the Sage Pay with Ulster Bank Merchant Services. Using Sagepay is the only option with my cart software so if I can't get the 2 working it will be a serious issue.

Do you know what the problem was with this?

For what its worth we are using sagepay and accepting laser card payments. Would be interested in hearing what the specific issue is.

aidan.connolly

+ 1

I only use Sagepay as a virtual terminal for Laser Payments. I would also like to know about the problem

ardale

+1
Still haven't signed on the dotted lines... please elaborate

writhen

Don't know - but in a face to face meeting with the Ulster Bank rep they told me that they could not accept laser payments with sagepay and advised contacting realex. She wouldnt elaborate why this was the case. I spoke with a sagepay rep that afternoon and she confirmed that there were issues. This was on the 4th of August.

I didn't pursue it any further as I didn't need any more hassle with the whole merchant account/laser card thing.

blobert

This sounds like it could be quite a big problem, I'll get on to them first thing tomorrow to check.

This would be a nightmare if it turns out to be true, have already had loads of problems getting the Ulster Bank merchant account and Sagepay set up

blobert

Just as an update on this guys, I got confirmation from SagePay:

We have got confirmation on everything and Ulster Bank will no longer allow Sage Pay to process Laser Cards. We can however accept Visa and MasterCard through but Laser is not allowed. The information that I have received over the last few days is that Laser Card is typically a chip and pin card and not ideal for ecommerce or over the phone however Bank of Ireland and AIB allow us to process Laser Cards. So the options to you are switch merchant accounts to BOI or AIB or switch to another payment gateway.


I was very clear about my requirements with SagePay, I needed to accept all card payments including Laser, and that I was using Ulster Bank.

I was told this was all fine.

I've spent a substantial sum on having a software developer code a payment module so I would specifically accept payments via Sagepay, so now am faced with either having to change merchant banks (based on how long it took to get set up with Ulster Bank this could take ages) or use a different payment provider (which will involve another custom module)

I can't believe they were so unaware of the basics of the services they are offering, not only this when I checked online (on the Sage forums) I see there have been issues with this since last year, so it is not a new issue:

https://support.sagepay.com/forum/Topic8439-22-1.aspx#bm8473

Just thought you guys should be aware of this.

Tony

I use realex and was the first to use this with Actinic software in Ireland,which runs my site.

Realex developed the module and scripts etc so it might be worth talking to them if software is an issue for you. Hopefully it would be less painful to set up. I use realex and elavon , realex are excellent, elavon not so good I'm afraid. I considered changing but I use BOI and not sure if there would be cashflow issues if I changed. I usually receive funds at the end of next business day.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

@ Tony - There would be a delayed funding issue moving, it's kind of like lodging a cheque into a different bank. Causes a two day delay.

@ blobert - Double check that with sagepay I know for a fact that other online retailers are using Laser with Ulsterbank as their merchants. Just ask for another rep or check with the merchant bank. The only explanation that could be possible is if your in a high risk industry (weddings etc), and they've an account which is subject to visa secure and 3D secure for Mastercard to offset their risk.

PS. Aforementioned issue with Elavon was sorted and they've issued an apology.

ardale

Hello again everyone,
Just want your opinions on this. When your site gets approved by the bank underwriters for card processing, would it be unusual for them to hold the funds for 6 days and then releasing them to my account after that delayed settlement period?
Seems odd to me but hey, I'm new at this.Any advise greatly appreciated.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

ardale wrote: »

Hello again everyone,
Just want your opinions on this. When your site gets approved by the bank underwriters for card processing, would it be unusual for them to hold the funds for 6 days and then releasing them to my account after that delayed settlement period?
Seems odd to me but hey, I'm new at this.Any advise greatly appreciated.

Yes this is completely normal - in fact when we started first we were on 28 days settlement delay. It is to cover the banks against a retailer taking a load of orders / money in or possibly process a load of stolen card details, withdraw the money and then disappear. The theory behind the settlement delay is that it gives the bank a chance to catch unusual patterns / customers report cards stolen etc. The money "resting in their accounts" doesnt do them any harm either