Card Schemes and Issuing Banks

In the UK the majority of commercial and pre-paid cards are branded products from the Amex, MasterCard or Visa stables.  Business Payment Cards come under a variety of nomenclatures, Corporate, Charge, Procurement, Purchasing and Pre-Paid being just some. The term “Card” is in itself somewhat misleading because many of the products now becoming available offer much more than just a piece of plastic.  Indeed it is perfectly normal to run a card programme without any cards.  Whilst the standard model of a card being carried around in wallet and purse is still universal, increasingly we are seeing Issuers and specialist companies offering a whole range of flexible purchasing solutions built around payment card functionality which can provide pre-purchase controls on the one hand and electronic delivery and manipulation of statements and management information on the other.  Closed loop and hosted cards are terms for card usage where purchases are restricted to particular suppliers nominated by the business and the purchaser may not even know that a Card is involved.

So who issues these cards and associated products?

The answer is, not unsurprisingly, most of the corporate banks operating in the UK offer a range of products to suit a variety of business/corporate needs.  For organisations operating in the Public Sector certain banks, who are party to Government agreements, will provide the Government Procurement Card (GPC) which is Visa badged and, for those with a Welsh connection, the Welsh Purchasing Card (WPC) which can be either MasterCard or Visa.

For those looking for Pre-Paid Cards the range is somewhat broader.  As well as most corporate banks a range of building societies and others are now issuing these products.  This is probably a reflection of the potential for growth the industry see for the Prep-Paid Card market, both in the consumer and government/business fields.

And Web Based Transaction Solutions?

Many card issuers offer their own additions to the basic card product particularly for the delivery and handling of management information and to provide more sophisticated pre-use controls.  There are however a growing number of third party software specialists who offer a range of these solutions which can work across a multitude of cards from different issuers/schemes.

Accepting Card payments?

Well, suppliers generally have to do two things (although there is an alternative path).  Firstly they need to be set up with a merchant account by an “Acquiring” Bank.  A relatively simple process subject to passing the bank’s appropriate credit/risk assessment criteria.  It should be noted that the is no requirement for this merchant account to be with a suppliers existing bank and it may well be that a better deal can be obtained by shopping around and also checking if there is already a “trade” deal in place with one of the Acquiring banks covering any trade associations of which the supplier is a member.  The second requirement is to have the necessary means with which to process card transactions on the merchant account.  There are a plethora of systems/solutions to cover this from a range of third-party providers and which is right really does depend on what may be a complex variety of factors.  Will the supplier be undertaking face to face transactions (in which case a chip and pin terminal is a must), remote (such as phone, fax or internet orders) or a mixture of both?  The type of cards to be accepted and level of transaction data demanded by any key customers is also a major consideration.  Increasingly both public sector and private businesses are demanding an enhanced level of data (including VAT detail) from their card capable suppliers and the ability to provide this may be crucial in continuation of the business from these card users and further growth.  Again, a range of products are available with both the acquiring banks and solution providers able to provide expert advice on the best solutions for any particular business.