theres quite a few companies about here in the uk doing it, I would stick with a mobile terminal from a payment handling company, they are cheaper and less charges than banks, if you go with a bank for a terminal they use mobile terminals provided by other companies and then charge you higher monthly rental fees, a bigger % of the transaction plus a charge for each use, as well as higher % charges if paid by a card from a rival bank....then they hit you with a 30p internet connection charge each time the terminal dials into the bank computer.....the handling companies charge about 2.5% and 12p connection for each use, also they charge about 30p extra for each payment with a debit card(as opposed to a credit card) whereas banks charge up to ÂŁ1.50 for each use of a debit card plus about 4.5% and the 30p connection charge (so a ÂŁ200 payment would cost ÂŁ10.80p in fees deducted straight away) that's why a lot of low value sales like burger vans etc don't operate mobile payment terminals and Taxi companies are only starting to use them now as their hand has been forced by the 100% reliance and use by most people these days of chip and pin instead of carrying cash....I knew of a few small taxi firms that tried out mobile payment terminals 10 years ago and quickly ditched them again until just recently (in the last 6 months)
if you look you will see that a lot of chip and pin accepting shops and businesses will not accept @m3ric@n xpress cards as they have to sign up to an extra deal with the bank to accept them, and the fees can be huge, as its off the back of an entirely american card processing system as opposed to m@astercard and V!sa which are worldwide based ...and causes problems.....
I have been told (and this was about 5 years ago) by a shop owner, and then by a Hotel owner when I asked, that the fees were so big that if somebody wanted to use the card, the minimum fee would be ÂŁ10.00........ie buying a bag of sweets in a shop and the shopkeeper would get charged ÂŁ10.00 making a big loss......so very few wanted to touch them.....for things like a ÂŁ500 car hire or buying a wedding dress this was ok but not for small things....
The result of this was a lot of very very vocal and loud furious US tourists kicking off about the card being declined here, it is just like a debit card back home for them, and is pretty useless here...resulting in a lot of arguments in hotels etc....so you have to watch what cards you get paid with as some banks penalise for using rival banks cards...
you just have to look at it, a lot of credit and debit cards from here get thrown back in your face in the USA and Europe as they think that they are worthless and that they will get charge-backs or conned in some way, or they just don't trust them.....and sometimes also for the fact that they know that they will get bigger bank fees for accepting them....then they come over here on holiday themselves and kick off about having cards declined.....
if you look up bank cards declined abroad on google you will see a lot about this, as well as about charges to businesses for accepting different bank cards, etc...
