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8 Best Online Payment Gateway For Small Business in the UK

It's the era of digital payments. Customers today carry their purchasing power in a mobile phone or a credit/debit card.

Online stores, especially small businesses have to be spot on to ensure that every customer they attract is converted.

According to researchers, 62% of online merchants lose customers to a failed transaction.

Therefore, smooth and successful payments are a necessity.

This is where payment gateways come into play.

An online payment gateway in simple terms is a network through which your customers channel money towards you.

It is a technology used by business owners to access and conduct money transactions.

In this blog, you will see some of the top payment gateway providers for startups and small businesses in the United Kingdom.

Before starting on the payment gateways, it is beneficial to know their role in an online transaction.

 

Top 8 Payment Gateways in UK for You to Choose From

Now, let us jump right into that list of payment gateways you would like to see on your website.

Image displaying the best online payment gateway providers in the UK for small businesses.

Worldpay

Being the most popular payment processing company in the United Kingdom, it is a natural choice for small businesses and startups. Worldpay handles about 135 million transactions daily.

They currently service more than 250,000 businesses across the UK and Europe. The Worldpay team can support you in setting up the payment from scratch.

In case you are planning to revamp your eCommerce website, Worldpay can do it for you.

The payment pages are hosted by Worldpay which makes it more secure. Also, they accept all credit cards, debit cards and payments by PayPal as well.

Allowing a total of 135 local currencies and 31 different languages.

Now, the question is what is the catch for small businesses?

Small businesses can benefit from Worldpay in two ways:

  • Worldpay Payment Gateway for ecommerce
  • Worldpay Card Machines for physical stores

Now, if you have an online and physical store, they will integrate the sales through a single online account. Restaurants, hairdressers, pubs, etc. form their major small business customers.

Features

  • Flexibility: Most payment gateways are called as APIs in your website and Worldpay provides a built-in package for all types of businesses.
  • Fraud Protection: It has some well-built security algorithms to check fraud and hence offers reliability.
  • Manager Tool: Manage your transactions with this tool and get more insights into your key concerns.

Pricing

Pricings do change time-to-time. But, a drastic change is often rare. So the current pricing will serve as a benchmark for you when you compare it with other payment gateway providers.

The two plans that suit small businesses are:

  • Pay as you go package: 2.75% + £ 0.20
  • Monthly Package: £19 per month plus 2.75% transaction fee for credit cards and 0.75% for debit cards

Stripe

Stripe is racing with Worldpay to earn “The Best” badge.

Because Stripe has some unique features that are driving it to the top and in the coming months it is bound to top the list of best payment gateway UK has ever seen.

What makes Stripe so unique?

Well, to start we can say it has more than one unique feature. Invented in the cafes of Buenos Aires as Patrick Collison co-founder says it was born out of a direct interaction with people.

Unique Features

Stripe is more than a payment gateway. Its special functionalities will add more colour to your eCommerce website features.

  • Billing - Helps you to create any complex billing system backend for any pricing model
  • Connect - Create amazing marketplace for buyers and sellers to interact and do business
  • Radar - Employ this machine-learning suite to detect frauds and secure your ecommerce website.
  • Atlas - A fully manageable business creation service
  • Sigma - An analytical tool which is SQL powered.

Stripe started with its focus on developers. In the early days, this strategy helped them self-market their services. Because, whenever a business needed payment integration they would ring a developer.

And what would developers do? Suggest a solution that they find easy to work with. And Stripe earned its way on to the top of the list.

Pricing:

Per Transaction price EU cards: 1.4% + 20p / Non-EU cards: 2.9% + 20p
Currency conversion of international cards 1%
Disputed payments (ie: charge-backs) £15 or £0
Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) direct debit 1% + 20p (max: £5)

You can trust Stripe if you want to make your payments futuristic. Because Stripe learns from its users.

Whenever you do a transaction in Stripe, the Stripe Radar is up and running. Based on the data collected from your behaviour, you are offered options to create rules.

For example, it can suggest you to “block all transactions when the phone number doesn’t match country code” or “invalidate a payment when CVV is wrong three times during a transaction.”

PayPal

Perhaps the most familiar name in the payment industry, PayPal, founded in 1998 December, has more than 360 million active subscribers today.

Payflow by Braintree is the preferred payment system for small businesses operating in the United Kingdom. It accepts credit/debit card payments and PayPal account transactions as well.

PayPal Pay Later is also supported by Braintree.

Paypal is known for its speed of transactions. Studies show that PayPal helps businesses hit 88.7% conversion rates.

Let us take a look at those features that let PayPal stand out.

Features:

  • There are no cancellation fees and hidden charges. Payflow costs just $ 0.10 per transaction.
  • Easy to integrate with major shopping carts and works with almost every processor. Overseas payments go well with it as PayPal works in 202 countries around the globe with 25 currencies.
  • The PCI-compliant solution meets stringent regulatory requirements.
  • PayPal accepts all major cards. Added to it is the Paypal credit payments, mobile optimised checkouts, pay later, etc.
  • Paypal pricing differs from country to country and you need to check out their website for the current pricing. However, it is economic when compared to Worldpay but pricier than Stripe.

Opayo

The Opayo, formerly the Sage Pay, began its operations in 2001. It was one of those payment platforms which grew to support small and medium enterprises in the UK.

Opayo is the right choice for small businesses which are looking to improve customer experience. It has a flexible pricing structure and there are no hidden fees.

Key Benefits

  • 2 times speed with Sage Pay and Sage Accounts.
  • Accept payments easily over smartphones
  • Record details and avoid errors
  • Free advanced fraud screening tools on your dashboard
  • Get insights with real-time reporting tools.
  • 24x7 telephone support
  • Offer your clients more choices with UPIs, contactless payments

Amazon Payment Services

Introduced in 2007, Amazon Pay is a reliable payment gateway. Amazon focuses on making every user's payment journey unique.

Amazon Payment Services offers integrated technologies to help you accept payments cutting across business domains.

The thing about APS is that they are highly customizable. It offers payment processing capabilities that support unique customer journeys.

The ease of accessing these features depends on your developing resources. If your E-commerce website development agency can help with this integration process, then you can leverage more from the website architecture.

Key Benefits

  • Easy mobile integration
  • Local payment methods for customers as Amazon has many agreements already in place with local payment networks.
  • Highly compatible, i.e across 200 e-commerce platforms including Shopify
  • Since customer data is stored in Amazon account, checkout is a one-click process
  • Highly secure with anti-fraud and risk management services.

Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments offer payment gateway services in the UK. It is another integrated platform like Amazon. The wide reach and customer base of these brands makes the payment process easy.

Access your payment gateway and analytic tools in one place with Shopify. Small businesses benefit from Shopify’s pricing structure.

Selling products over £100 is really a catch for you. You can also refer to their pricing plans.

Key Benefits:

  • Save transaction fees and track your money real-time
  • Clear pricing with monthly and yearly plans
  • Easy order management logic
  • Smooth payout path for customers
  • Accelerated checkouts offer more revenues with mre conversions
  • Chargeback is efficiently managed

Cardstream

Cardstream offers full end-to-end white-label solutions. It also offers modular payment solutions that can adapt to your changing requirements.

You can integrate Cardstream with a single API call. Alternative payment methods also come under a single platform that comes in through this API.

Configurable checkout process makes it very customer-friendly when international transactions are carried out.

Key Benefits

  • Offers is the only independent payment gateway in UK that offers white label payment platform for banks, PSPs, ISOs and software companies
  • Rebrand solutions easily with the complete management system, forms, modules and billing
  • Highly secure PCI-DSS Level 1 certified cloud payment hence integrates mobile, telephone and other devices.
  • It is fully scalable to adapt to grow with your business expansion globally.
  • A single integration you do with One Payment Network connects your business to a vast network of global acquirers and payment schemes.

Skrill

Skrill, originally founded in the United Kingdom in 2001, was known by the name Moneybookers.

In 2007, it was among the top three e-payment solution providers which shows their undisputed expertise.

Skrill offers a fast, instant and secure payment environment that suits all businesses.

The integration is simple and opens your access to 100+ local payment methods including digital wallets, cards, and instant bank transfers among other alternatives.

You can also manage over 40 currencies from one account and handle international transactions with ease.

Key Features

  • Instant transfer that links more than 3000+ banks worldwide
  • Shopping carts are integrated with local payment options all with a single account
  • Skrill 1-Tap enables repeat payments with a single touch
  • Multilingual customer care
  • Fully PCI compliant and highly secure

Final Words

Times have changed, e-commerce is now a way of life for shoppers.

Though many predicted the return of customers to physical stores after the COVID-19 restrictions, that hasn’t been fully the case. Ecommerce continues to flourish and prosper.

McKinsey’s research on the future retail stores tells us that the future is different.

It is neither totally digital nor totally physical. It is phygital.

A connected paradigm of the best eCommerce platforms and tech-driven storefronts.

So there is no time to lose.

Plan your payment journey with a suitable payment gateway and awe your customers with security and trust.

Posted In:
  • eCommerce
  • Oliver-Author
    Oliver Baker
    Co-Founder

    Oliver Baker is a co-founder of Intelivita, a leading Web and Mobile App Development Company based in Leeds, UK. Oliver has been at the forefront of the business, expanding it globally and into new technologies including iOS and Android, AR, VR and Mobile Game applications. Oliver excels in Project Management, Leadership, Quality Assurance and Problem Solving and has qualifications with Prince2 and APM. He aims to develop his skills further through a shared interest with other leaders in the Software Markets and the Clients of Intelivita.

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