Official UK procurement notice
LCC Merchant Acquiring and Associated Services
Authority: Lincolnshire County Council (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionLincolnshire County Council requires a merchant acquiring facility to work alongside a regulated payment services provider to process card payments on its behalf. The payment services provider will arrange authorisation from the customer’s card issuer or bank and then collect those funds and pay them to the Council.
The payment acceptance process will securely receive payments via cards, digital wallets, payment gateways and online platforms. The provider will process transactions through card issuers like Visa or Mastercard, checks fund availability, transfers payments to the Council, and ensure compliance with Payment Card Industry and Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).
The requirement also includes the provision of sale (POS) terminals for face-to-face and unattended payment transactions.
Within the Council’s structure there are a number of service areas where card payment acceptance processing is required. The Council has identified a number of dependencies with other providers that would need to be taken account of as part of any implementation process.
The Contract is anticipated to run for a period of 4 years, commencing 1st April 2027 and expiring 31st March 2031. There will be an option for the Council to extend the Contract by a period or periods of up to 24 months to ultimately expire 31st March 2033.
CPV: Processing and clearing services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1PlannedRenewal
Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Lincolnshire County Council buys Brokerage and related securities and commodities services (CPV 6613), and who usually turns up
Lincolnshire County Council’s own published record, next to the published market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are kept out: they attract a different number of bids. Whole-market view: Brokerage and related securities and commodities services (CPV 6613) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Here, local means the winner is registered in the region where that contract was delivered.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners are registered in East Midlands.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the deadline to the first award notice, on competitions that published both dates.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards were announced within 32 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Missing bid counts may hide more single-bid awards. This share is a minimum.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid17% / 15%
2–347% / 15%
4–614% / 15%
7+22% / 54%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate46% / 20%
Within ±2%40% / 80%
Above estimate14% / 0%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 6613Published estimate£400k
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 69 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid14%
2–348%
4–633%
7+4%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 8 Dec 2025, 15:57 GMT
- Last source update
- 18 Dec 2025, 16:48 GMT
- Authority reference
PL25.071- FTS notice number
2025/S 000-084615- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-05f10bFind a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
8 Dec 2025 → 1 Apr 2027 · 5 dates- Planning notice published318 days ago8 Dec 2025, 15:57 GMT
- Latest notice published308 days ago18 Dec 2025, 16:48 GMT
- Market engagement302 days ago24 Dec 2025, 23:59 GMT
Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) is looking to procure Merchant Acquiring and Associated Services, including the acceptance of payments via face to face or point of sale (POS) terminals, over the phone or on line.
We are seeking to bring awareness to the market of an upcoming opportunity and understand the market’s preferred approached to a number of key issues to inform the decision-making process.
The attached Questionnaire is in two sections. Section A provides the topics that we would like to discuss, and an overview of the requirement and Section B contains the market engagement questionnaire.
Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) welcomes discussion about its requirement for Merchant Acquiring and Associated Services. This Market Engagement will focus on the below points:
Implementation Length, Resources and Costs
Fee Structure: Transactions and non-transactional fees
Contract Management
PCI Compliance / Data Protection
Terms and Conditions
Other Services Offered
Other Information
Suppliers are requested to download and complete the Pre-Market Engagement Questionnaire and return the completed form via the Panacea e-sourcing system app.panacea-software.com/lcc/Login.aspx ↗
- Tender notice expected143 days ago2 Jun 2026, 00:59 BST
- Today23 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 160 days1 Apr 2027
Notice history
2 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 8 Dec 2025- Preliminary market engagement notice published8 Dec 2025, 15:57 GMTUK2
- Preliminary market engagement notice published18 Dec 2025, 16:48 GMTUK2
Published amendments (1)
Please note the deadline for submission of the Pre-Market Engagement Questionnaire has been extended to 24/12/2025 at 17:00
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender