Official UK procurement notice
Merchant Acquiring Services — UK public procurement notice
Authority: London Borough of Brent (Local council)
Sectors: Financial and insurance services (66) Delivery: London (UKI72)
Awarded value £900,000published award · exc. VAT
Award in standstill Not publishedno call for competition
Award (standstill) to Barclays Bank PLC
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionMerchant Acquiring is an essential contract from a financial perspective as it is necessary to enable residents and customers to pay the council by debit and credit card, over £100m a year is collected by the council using this contract.
This service is a key part of the council’s support systems, and essential for the council to be able to collect payments by card as people expect in 2026.
The contract helps enable the goals set out in the Customer Access Strategy to strive to make the online customer journey accessible, user-friendly and straightforward, as customers expect to be able to pay for services online using their cards.
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Lot 1Awarded
66172000 Financial transaction processing and clearing-house services
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Direct award
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Notice status
- Awarded without competition
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Direct award — no call for competition
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- No (one-off requirement)
- First published
- 11 Sept 2026, 17:34 BST
- Last source update
- 11 Sept 2026, 17:34 BST
- Authority reference
CORP-2024-027- Latest notice
- Transparency notice (UK5)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4
- Why no open competition
- Single Suppliers Technical Reasons
- Published justification
This is a complex contract to re-procure, involving both a complex, technical procurement, and multiple council departments with differing specifications. If awarded to a different supplier then there is significant work to transition several of the council’s financial systems to use the new supplier which would not be possible for technical and operational reasons before the existing contract expires. The Council more…
cannot risk the disruption to this service as this would impact income collection via e-commerce, online or telephone payments from residents and customers. Therefore, Officers intend to use this time in an effective way to plan a new procurement exercise and procure compliantly a suitably experienced supplier to deliver and support the transition to a possible new supplier of merchant acquiring services.
Review and risk notes
- Risks
The contracting authority reserves the right to modify the contract in reliance on Schedule 8 paragraph 8 of the Procurement Act 2023 where the contracting authority requires a modification for additional goods, services or works has arisen in addition to those already provided for in the contract; and using a more…
different supplier would result in the supply of goods, services or works that are different from, or incompatible with, those already provided for in the contract; and the contracting authority considers that this would result in disproportionate technical difficulties in operation or maintenance or other significant inconvenience and the substantial duplication of costs for the authority.
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Published awards, contracts and bid statistics — not a forecastAwards 1some still in standstill
Awarded value £900,0001 award exc. VAT
| Awarded to | Value | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barclays Bank PLC1 Oct 2026 — 31 Mar 2028 | £900,000 | — | Standstill |
Notice history
2 events · 1 release on Find a Tender · since 11 Sept 2026- Contract signature expected30 Sept 2026, 23:59 BSTscheduled
- Transparency notice published11 Sept 2026, 17:34 BSTUK5
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Bidders & participating suppliers
1 commercial party on the notice- BARCLAYS BANK UK PLCAwarded supplierView supplier profile →
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedTender pack and attachments
- Conflict of interest declarationNot published
Notices published for this procedure
- Transparency notice Transparency notice on Find a Tender