Credit-Card Processing

One thing I’ve been checking out recently as a business requirement (it won’t be for just yet, but within the next two or three months, I should think) is the ability to do online processing of credit- and debit-cards. And bloody hell, what a nightmare it is.

Looking at RBS’s WorldPay solution, the costs are as follows :

• Set-up : £200
• Monthly fee : £30 (although they want six months up front, so £180)
• Transaction charges
  • Debit cards : 50p per transaction
  • Credit Cards : 4.5% of transaction value
• Fraud Protection : £20 per month plus an extra percentage per transaction

And if I want to be able to do subscription-type stuff (which was under consideration) that’ll cost me another £100 to set up.

So when I look at sorting out that side of things, it’s going to cost me a minimum of £400 , plus the fee on every transaction. That means that I’d have to get – roughly – eight or nine subscriptions just to break even.

Talk about banks being a bunch of robbing cunts…