New card payments comparison tool promises small businesses thousands in savings

Statement, the platform comparing card payment providers for small businesses, has been launched in the UK with £1.5 million in pre-seed funding from global venture capital investor Northzone.

Statement said its price comparison platform gives control back to merchants saving them up to £5,400 annually.

Recent data has revealed that 92 per cent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) have been with the same payment provider for more than a year, and 66 per cent of merchants don’t know the fees that they are paying to these providers.

The combination of prices hidden behind sales calls and the high costs of switching providers has meant that SMB merchants are often paying two-three times the market rate for their payments, the platform noted.

A four year review of the card acquiring market by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) concluded that the market is “not working well” for the 1.1 million SMBs that accept card payments in the UK, resulting in a series of aggressive remedies. Statement said theirs is a key enabling technology in facilitating the PSR’s vision for a fairer payments market, allowing merchants to compare payment providers, and switch in minutes.

“We all use our cards without a second thought, but accepting card payments has been frustrating for small business owners for far too long.” said Ed Hardy, chief executive of Statement. “90 per cent of contracts are still signed through telesales or field sales making it hard to quickly search the market. We’re building the technology to create a more transparent payment industry where businesses can compare and board to their chosen provider online, cutting the process of finding the right provider from days down to minutes.”

Once businesses upload their most recent merchant statement to Statement’s online platform, its technology automatically pulls the required information to provide a tailored recommendation of payment providers. Merchants are shown a comparison tool, comparing key metrics that are most important to their business and spending needs such as settlement time, contract length, and monthly charges.