Merchant Acquiring Services 2022

The Council needs to procure the services of a merchant acquirer. A merchant acquirer is a financial institution that processes credit and debit card transactions for a company. The scope of their involvement includes the processing of the payment, authentication of the customer, card authorisation, receiving the money form the card-issuing bank and assisting the Council with refunds and chargebacks. Without having a merchant acquirer, the Council will be unable to accept card payments.

The bulk of the transactions that will be taken against this contract will be for the Tamar Bridge Toll Fees and our Pay on Foot machines in our Car Parks (new to the contract).

The Parking Service currently operates 9 pay on foot car parks (soon to increase to 11), which enable customers to pay for their parking using a mixture of cash and card payments. They are currently using a separate merchant and would like to use the corporate contract. The ability for our customers to pay by card at car parks will reduce the amount of cash collected and drive down costs of collection, it will also reduce the associated risks of any loss of revenue due to non-collections, or full car park machines. It is anticipated that the number of card payments that will be taken in a year at these car parks will be approximately 1million.

A further requirement of this contract is to allow Cornwall Council to lease mobile chip and pin devices which are used by services where direct integration to our cash receipting system is not an option. Examples include Tremorvah Industries where fees are paid for goods, Maritime services for overnight harbour moorings, and café’s in Council buildings such as Kresen Kernow.

Expanding the use of card payments enhances the customer experience and since the COVID pandemic it is the preferred payment method of most businesses and our customers will expect to pay in this fashion. An added benefit is that it will further reduce the need for the Council to accept cash/cheque payments which have expensive overheads in collection, processing and reconciliation