Merchant Payment Solutions

Take control of your merchant payments stack

For most businesses, payments are the largest unmanaged cost centre in their P&L. We find what you're overpaying, fix it, and build a payments strategy that drives both cost reduction and revenue growth.

30–80
Basis points typically recovered
4×
Average client ROI on engagement
80+
Merchant engagements delivered

Merchant payment solutions that actually move the needle

Most merchants have never had their payments stack independently reviewed. They accepted the acquirer's first offer, never audited their interchange qualification, and have no visibility into what portion of their processing costs are avoidable. That passivity is expensive, and it's the gap Fin-Pro closes.

Our merchant payment solutions practice covers the full cost and capability picture: from the fees you pay to accept cards, to the fraud controls that protect your revenue, to the checkout experience that determines whether customers complete their purchase. We assess everything, identify the opportunities, and help you execute.

The key cost and revenue levers

Interchange Optimisation

Audit your interchange qualification, identify downgrade patterns, implement Level 2/3 data submission, and switch to interchange-plus pricing for full visibility.

Up to 120bps recovery

Acquirer Selection & Renegotiation

Benchmark your current acquirer rates against market, run a competitive RFP, and negotiate terms that reflect your actual volume and risk profile.

5–20bps margin improvement

Checkout Optimisation

Analyse your checkout flow for drop-off points, optimise authentication UX, implement smart routing, and reduce false declines that cost you completed transactions.

2–8% conversion uplift

Alternative Payment Methods

Identify which APMs (open banking, digital wallets, local schemes) are relevant for your customer base and design an integration strategy that reduces card dependency.

Full interchange avoidance

Fraud & Chargeback Management

Review your fraud detection tooling, chargeback ratio, and dispute management process. Reduce losses without increasing false positive rates that hurt conversion.

Significant loss reduction

Scheme Fee Audit

Review your scheme fee schedule line by line. Identify services you're paying for but not using, and ensure fees are correctly applied to your transaction mix.

Variable, often significant

The single most valuable thing most merchants can do today: request a full interchange qualification report from your acquirer. It takes one email. The data will show you exactly where you're leaving money on the table, and we can tell you how to recover it.

Who we work with

Mid-market & Enterprise Merchants

Businesses processing £10m–£1bn+ in annual card volume where the commercial impact of optimisation is material. Sectors include e-commerce, retail, hospitality, travel, financial services, and B2B.

Marketplaces & Platforms

Businesses that facilitate payments between buyers and sellers, where the payments architecture, regulatory model, and cost structure require a different approach to standard merchant acquiring.

International Businesses

Merchants operating across multiple markets face compounded complexity, different acquiring relationships, local payment method preferences, currency and FX costs, and regulatory requirements in each jurisdiction. We design merchant payment solutions that work globally, not just locally.

How we work

FAQ

Common questions about merchant payments

What is interchange and why am I paying different rates?
Interchange is a fee paid by your acquiring bank to the cardholder's issuing bank on every card transaction. It's set by card schemes (Visa, Mastercard) and varies based on card type (consumer vs. commercial, debit vs. credit), transaction method (card-present vs. online), merchant category, and data quality submitted with the transaction. Interchange typically accounts for 70–90% of your total card acceptance cost, making it the most important lever in payments cost optimisation.
What is interchange-plus pricing and should I switch to it?
Interchange-plus (IC++) pricing separates interchange costs from your acquirer's margin, giving you full visibility into what you're actually paying. Blended pricing bundles everything into a single rate, hiding the underlying cost structure. For most merchants processing significant volume, interchange-plus pricing enables better cost management and negotiation leverage. The transparency alone often reveals optimisation opportunities that blended pricing obscures.
How can I reduce my payment processing costs?
The key levers are: interchange optimisation (ensuring transactions qualify at the lowest possible interchange tier), acquirer margin renegotiation (benchmarking your rates against market and running competitive RFPs), scheme fee audit (reviewing line-by-line what you're paying for), and payment method diversification (offering lower-cost alternatives like open banking or local payment methods where appropriate). Most merchants leave significant money on the table in at least one of these areas.
Should I use multiple acquirers?
For merchants with significant volume or multi-market operations, a multi-acquirer strategy can improve authorisation rates, reduce concentration risk, enable geographic optimisation, and provide negotiation leverage. However, it also adds integration complexity and operational overhead. The right answer depends on your transaction volume, geographic footprint, and the sophistication of your payments team. We help merchants evaluate the trade-offs and design the right acquirer architecture.
What are alternative payment methods and should I offer them?
Alternative payment methods (APMs) include anything beyond traditional card payments: open banking (pay-by-bank), digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay), buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), and local payment schemes (iDEAL, Bancontact, PIX). Whether you should offer them depends on your customer demographics and markets. APMs can reduce card dependency and interchange costs, improve conversion for certain customer segments, and are essential for expansion into markets where card penetration is lower.
How do chargebacks affect my business?
Chargebacks cost you the transaction amount plus fees (typically £15–25 per chargeback), and excessive chargeback rates can trigger scheme monitoring programmes, higher processing fees, or even account termination. Beyond direct costs, chargebacks consume operational resources and indicate either fraud exposure or customer experience issues. We help merchants build effective chargeback prevention and dispute management programmes that protect both revenue and acquirer relationships.

Ready to optimise your merchant payments?

Start with a no-commitment payments cost audit, we'll show you the opportunity before you decide anything.

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