Universal Payment Gateway - fast, low-cost online payments!
UPG is a system that enables live credit and debit card transactions to take place from your web site. It performs realtime card authorisation with automatic settlement to your bank for all transactions.
Please note that you will need a merchant account with a UK bank to accept card payments through UPG. If you already have a merchant account we will contact your bank to request an additional Internet merchant number for you. If you do not have a merchant account at all, you will need to obtain one from a UK bank. If you don't yet have a merchant account we provide free support and advice on how to obtain one. Please click here for more details on merchant accounts.
About the service
For the first time we have made available an online processing service that does not go via a PSP (Payment Service Provider). Instead we link straight into one of the UK's largest IP payment networks, known as "UPG" (Universal Payment Gateway). This network is at the root of online payments for all the major UK banks.
This payment network offers the following advantages :-
- Very low transaction fees - just pay for what you need
- Fast authorisation and processing times
- Extremely resilient network processing millions of transactions per month
- Links into all major UK banks - Barclays, Natwest Streamline, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, RBoS
- "Virtual terminal" to manually enter card payments, allowing you to ditch your PDQ machine!
- Refunds
- Pre-authorisation - ie. the ability to authorise the credit card, for final payment to be taken only when goods are shipped
- Multi-currency (requires separate merchant IDs from your bank for each currency; some banks do not support this feature)
The UPG was built to process the transactions for large corporate businesses, and SecureHosting are the first company to open up this network for the smaller business.
Fraud prevention
The UPG offers the latest in fraud prevention measures, including :-
- CV2 checking - verifies the security number on the reverse of the credit card
- AVS - verifies the cardholder address
The UPG payment system is used in conjunction with either our eCOM Basic, Standard or Premium service - offering secure form hosting, form building wizard, optional shopping cart, affiliate tracking and email newsletter management tools. Whether you just require your own simple order form, or a complete end-to-end e-commerce system, our service has a solution to match your requirements.
And our system is able to capture your customer's ordered product details as well as just payment information - meaning that our service is a complete order capture and payment system. This is one of the key benefits that makes our service different and more useful than traditional PSPs.
PRICING
Our online payments service is priced very competitively, and is purchased in "blocks" of transactions upfront. You can purchase any number of transactions from a minimum of 100. The purchased transactions can be used at any time - there is no time limit in which they have to be used, however please note that if you cancel your SecureHosting account that we cannot refund any unused transactions.
TRANSACTION FEES
No. of transaction credits purchased |
Total Cost |
Equivalent cost per transaction |
100 |
£25 |
25p |
250 |
£55 |
22p |
500 |
£99 |
19.8p |
1,000 |
£149 |
14.9p |
5,000 |
£499 |
9.98p |
10,000
|
£899 |
8.99p |
25,000 |
£2000 |
8p |
50,000 |
POA |
POA |
Please note :
We DO NOT charge for failed transactions, unlike many traditional PSPs
Typical pricing example
| eCom Basic plus online processing with UPG | |
| eCom Basic setup (one-off) | £35 |
Online processing upgrade (one-off) |
£25 |
| Annual Fee | £85 |
+ transaction fees as in table above |
|
All prices subject to VAT of 17.5% to EU customers
If you already have an account with us you only pay the upgrade fee (£25) and the transaction charges as displayed in the table above.
Got a manual credit card terminal? Processing your transactions by hand? Well there's no need to do so any more - you can use our service to process all your telephone and mail order credit card transactions as well as your online ones. This could save you typically around £240 per year, being the normal cost to rent a credit card terminal. And furthermore by processing your card payments through our system you will benefit from the CV2 and cardholder address checks, for no extra charge!
What to do next
1. If you already have a merchant account
- Please open an account on our system - see our services (if you already have an account with us then you do not need to open a new one).
- Please complete the online application form for the UPG payment gateway.
- We will then contact you to organise the link to your merchant account.
If you already have a merchant account please do not contact your bank to set up an internet outlet for your merchant account as this will lead to delays - we will instead contact the bank on your behalf.
2. If you do not yet have a merchant account
- Please read our guide to obtaining an Internet merchant account.
If you require more information on our UPG service please go here.
Please note that we can only offer online card processing to UK based companies.
Every e-commerce shop needs terms and conditions of sale and a privacy policy to comply with distance selling regulations, and to reassure customers.
Please see www.e-terms.co.uk to obtain your T&C's.
