Accepting Maestro (UK) Cards on Irish Site? Possible Through Realex or PayPal??

blobert

Hi Guys,

I was set up to accept payments on my site using SagePay with my UlsterBank merchant account, however as I found out yesterday this combo don't take Laser cards.

I'm looking into other options, I want to be able to offer UK and Irish customers the widest range possible of payment options so that Credit Cards/Laser for Irish customers and Credit Cards/Maestro/Solo for UK with PayPal as an option to both. Ideally I'd like to be able to charge UK customers in £ also.

Am looking to switch to Realex to process the payments, I know they offer Credit Card/Laser options to Irish customers, what I'm wondering is if as an Irish merchant they would allow me take Maestro payments from UK customers? I'll get on to them on Monday about this, just hoping someone here might know in the meantime.

The other option for UK Maestro owners to pay might be through PayPal. I think UK PayPal users can sign up for an account with a Maestro card. However I dont know if as an Irish PayPal account owner I could take payments made by a UK Maestro card, it seems Irish PayPal is much more limited in the payment sources it allows so I'm wondering if this applies to the types of payments you can receive also (can't find anything about it on their site).

Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

It's turning out to be a serious headache to do something that should be straightforward and that I assume most merchants would want to do (accept as many payment sources as possible).

Thanks

blobert

Just as an update to this I think Realex will be able to take the UK card payments though I may have to set up a £GBP account with Ulster Bank.

Still have not been able to get an answer on the PayPal issue, it will become less important if I'm able to take the Maestro cards etc directly.

aidan.connolly

Hi,

I looked at setting up a UK Paypal account to enable me to be able to use the Paypal Virtual Terminal which could process Laser / Maestro cards etc

The initial feed back was positive, however as I tried to set this up I was informed that my UK Paypal Account would be terminated after the first transaction, because I am resident in the Irish Republic and not in the UK.

Dont know if this answers your query.

Aidan

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Yeah this is one of those retarded rules, you need to maintain a UK office to have a merchant account for the UK. Just another way that the department of enterprise lets us down i'm afraid.

Trojan

TheCostumeShop.ie (Ronan) wrote: »

Yeah this is one of those retarded rules, you need to maintain a UK office to have a merchant account for the UK.

What about a virtual address? I've seen them for as little as £10/month in UK (http://www.setup.co.uk/).

blobert

Thanks for the replies guys.

I asked my bank and they said

Its not a problem to process sterling payments through the site but you will need to do the following to progress same:

(1) Complete a sterling merchant application form

(2) You must have a sterling current acc held in NI/UK for us to process direct debits through - contact your business acc manager to arrange this

Ronan, are you saying its not possible to get a UK merchant account without a UK business address? Perhaps a virtual address in the UK would do?

As a lot of my customers are going to be UK based I just want to be able to offer them the ability to order and pay in Sterling. I also want to be able for them to pay with UK Debit cards. You wouldn't think that this would be that unusual a request, but its proving very tricky.

Still to get a reply from PayPal, but I think it should be possible for UK customers to pay with Debit Cards through PayPal. I pretended to buy from an Irish store using UK details and it allowed me to enter my Maestro Card Details on PayPal.

Now whether or not I can charge them in £ and be based in Ireland is another thing.

Any further advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks