Retail payment options

Accepting card payments offers your customers a convenient way to pay you for goods. Cards are one of the most common forms of payment in retail, particularly for higher-value purchases.

Customers increasingly expect to be able to pay with card. You will need certain equipment and systems in place to accept card payments. See advantages and disadvantages of accepting payment cards for sales.

How to accept card payment

To start accepting card payments, you will need:

• a merchant account with an acquiring bank, see setting up a merchant account for your business
• a connected terminal, usually a chip & PIN/contactless card machine – includes countertop card machines, mobile card machines, portable card machines and virtual payment systems for online or over the phone purchases

See accepting card payments for goods or services and how payment card processing works.

The process will be different depending on whether the card is present for the transaction, ie in-store transactions vs online or phone orders. 

There are certain costs and charges relating to accepting card payments. See the costs of accepting card payments.

Card types

There are various types of cards that can be used for payments. The two main kinds are:

• Credit card - this allows customers to purchase goods on credit from their issuer. You will be charged for processing these as a percentage of the transaction.
• Debit card - this allows the customer to take money directly from their bank account. The processing fee you incur will usually be a flat rate per transaction.

You should consider whether you will be able to accept foreign-issued cards, which may not use chip and PIN. Other less common payment card types include:

• corporate cards
• gift cards
• prepaid cards
• purchasing cards
• store cards

See types of payment cards available.

How customers present the card:

• Chip-and-PIN - the card is inserted into the terminal, the customer authenticates with a PIN
• Contactless (tap to pay) - card is tapped on a terminal; used for debit, credit, or prepaid cards, usually with a transaction limit before PIN is required.
• Mobile and smartphone contactless - stores card details in a digital wallet and includes Google Pay, PayPal and Apple Pay.