Payment Processing for UK-Registered Companies

A UK company is straightforward to onboard for card payments. What decides the outcome is usually your industry, your trading history and where your customers are, not the country of registration. Getting the Companies House details, settlement account and UK-specific rules right from the start makes onboarding much faster.

Last reviewed October 2026

What providers check on a UK company

Companies House registration, directors and persons with significant control.
Identity verification at Companies House: required for new directors from 18 November 2025, with existing directors and PSCs verifying during a 12-month transition.
Whether your activity needs FCA authorisation or registration, for example money remittance, e-money or credit broking.
A trading address and evidence that the business operates as described.
A UK business bank account in the company's name for settlement.

Card fees for UK merchants

Interchange on UK consumer cards used at UK merchants is capped at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit. Online payments from customers with EEA-issued cards are different: since Brexit the card schemes raised interchange on those to 1.15% for debit and 1.5% for credit. The Payment Systems Regulator is working on a cap but has not set one yet, so if you sell heavily into the EU, compare offers on your real card mix.

Rules UK merchants need to know

Strong customer authentication has applied to UK e-commerce since 14 March 2022, with exemptions for low-value, low-risk and merchant-initiated payments.
Gambling with credit cards has been banned since 14 April 2020.
Since 7 October 2024, banks must reimburse most victims of authorised push payment scams on Faster Payments, up to £85,000 per claim, which affects how bank-transfer and open banking payments are checked.

What UK customers pay with

Debit cards are the UK's most used payment method: in 2025 they were used for 26.6 billion payments, more than half of all UK payments, and contactless payments reached 19.2 billion. Online, cards and mobile wallets are the usual ways to pay at checkout, and open banking payments are growing for larger and account-to-account payments. For subscriptions, Bacs Direct Debit is widely expected next to cards; customers are protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee, which gives a full and immediate refund if a payment is taken in error.

Selling into the EU from the UK

Since Brexit, a UK company selling into the EU is a non-EEA merchant for European acquirers, which affects interchange and which acquiring routes are available. Some businesses set up a separate EU company for that reason. That is a commercial and tax decision, so get advice before restructuring.

How Acquipayer helps UK companies

Acquipayer is not a payment provider. We match UK companies with a payment provider that accepts their industry and markets, through one online application.

Add your company, industry, markets and volumes once.
We match you with a provider that fits your business and settles in GBP.
Your account is prepared with the provider so you can start taking payments.

Subscriptions

For recurring billing the provider decision is mostly about retry logic, card-lifecycle tooling and authentication. Those three drive more revenue than the headline processing rate.

iGaming

An iGaming payment solution is the combination of acquirer, PSP or gateway, local payment methods and payout rails that lets an operator take deposits and pay out winnings. Which of those will work for you is decided almost entirely by licensing and player geography: a provider that boards a Curaçao-licensed casino is rarely the same one that boards a UKGC-licensed brand, so the first step is matching your licence and markets to an acquirer's gambling programme.

Ecommerce

For standard retail ecommerce the deciding factors are authorisation rate, the local payment methods your markets expect, and settlement terms, usually in that order.

UK Gambling Commission (UKGC)

A UK Gambling Commission licence is one of the strongest a gambling operator can show an acquirer, but it also comes with the most detailed payment rules of any major market. Credit cards are banned, deposits may only run through regulated payment services, and financial vulnerability checks are triggered by net deposits. Your payment setup has to be built around those rules from day one.

Electronic money institution (EMI)

An electronic money institution (EMI) may issue e-money and hold customer balances, which puts it in a regulated category of its own when it applies for card acquiring. The question is no longer whether the business is legitimate, but how customer money is safeguarded, which markets the licence covers and how financial crime is controlled.

Card payments

Card acceptance is the default payment method for most online businesses, and it is also the method with the most moving parts: an authorisation, a later capture, a settlement cycle, and a dispute right the cardholder keeps for months after paying.

SEPA Direct Debit

SEPA Direct Debit lets you collect euro payments directly from a customer's bank account under a mandate they have signed. It suits recurring billing well and costs less than cards, but consumers can get their money back for weeks afterwards, so it is a poor fit wherever you need certainty that a payment will stay.

Merchant account terminated

A termination stops your card payments and follows you into your next application. Whether it becomes a lasting problem depends mostly on one thing: whether your acquirer also put you on Mastercard's MATCH list or Visa's terminated merchant list. Find that out first, then build a file that answers the next underwriter's questions before they ask them.

No processing history

Every business starts without processing history, and new businesses are accepted for card payments every day. Without statements to review, a provider judges your plan instead of your track record: what you sell, when customers receive it, who is behind the company and whether your volume estimate is believable. A complete, consistent application is what gets you accepted.

What is a PSP?

A payment service provider (PSP) is the company that lets your business accept payments: it connects your checkout to card schemes and local payment methods, sends each payment for authorisation and reports the result. Some PSPs also hold the acquiring licence and settle the money to you; others route your payments to a separate acquiring bank that does.

PSP vs acquirer

The PSP provides the technology and the commercial relationship; the acquirer holds the scheme licence, underwrites your business and settles your money. Many merchants need both, sometimes bundled by one provider, sometimes contracted separately.

Check which payment routes may fit your business

Answer a short set of questions about your business and we will check your profile against the requirements providers have given us. No approval is decided here.

Check my payment options

Nothing is shared with a provider until you submit your onboarding pack. Approval is always the provider's decision.