Before the PDQ machine was in widespread use credit card payment was processed in a few ways, cash registers were designed with the ability of swiping a customers card, reading the data stored on the magnetic strip and then transmitting the credit card information. Nowadays most businesses have a PDQ Machine but a small few still own a cash register which might be linked up to a PDQ terminal.

Every PDQ terminal has fees involved with each transaction but the investment can be compared against the return you will see from the increase in customers who prefer to pay by card. Convenience is the name of the game and cashless transactions are becoming more frequent as consumers enjoy paying for services in situations where they might not have had chance to visit the ATM. For example, that emergency call out to the plumber who happened to carry a mobile credit card terminal with him such as the one pictured above.

Seymour Direct is committed to helping businesses achieve this convenience for their customers whilst also getting the best package to suit their own needs, since we can provide the latest mobile terminals with very low rates on rental and transaction fees.

The PDQ machine offers great ease of payment whether you are on the move with a mobile card terminal or even if you have a static desktop card machine plugged into the landline at your premises. At Seymour Direct with have a long history of helping our clients choose the payment solution that is best for them, our friendly support team will advise you on whether your business would be best suited to using a wireless or Bluetooth terminal.

You can speak to one of our staff via our Freephone 0800 980 4007 from a landline or call 01923 773 355 from a mobile. 

When requesting a quote to accept card payments we will take into account the type of business you operate and the value of the products or services that you supply to your customers, this is necessary in order to estimate the potential risk factor that is involved in the unlikely event that you may be targeted by fraudulent transactions.

There are several types of portable machines that enable you to accept credit or debit cards on the move. In this blog I will concentrate on the two most commonly used which are Bluetooth and Mobile GPRS versions. The Bluetooth Portable card machines, sometimes referred to as a Wireless Credit Card Machine, is very often used by restaurants who want to take the card payment at the table ensuring that the diner is in full control of their card and does not end up in the wrong hands. During recent years Bluetooth portable machines are also being used by other types of businesses such as hair salons, builders merchants, garden centres etc who want to provide a better shopping experience plus be able to close a sale quickly, such within a large garden centre, before customers talk themselves out of the purchase.

If you are looking for credit card machines for small business ventures it can prove difficult to decide on which bank or merchant services company provides the cheapest line rental and charges for customer transactions.

It is important to find a merchant services provider who offers full customer service, this includes having an operator on standby to answer your questions 7 days a week and unlike Seymour Direct some other companies do not provide this. We have even heard stories where customers have inquired with other merchant account providers about their rates and have been told they must join the ‘federation’ or have a salesperson visit them to discuss the matter before prices are revealed to them, we do not believe this is acting in the customers best interests.

A credit card processing supplier should consider all types of businesses whether they are large or small, at Seymour Direct, our friendly staff will assist you and do our utmost to get you approved for a merchant account provided that you supply us with all of the relevant documentation.

If you are searching for ‘credit card machines for small business UK‘  or just general terms such as ‘Merchant Services’ on Google, you will see that we appear first for most of these terms.  As one of the longest serving the UK market alone, we do not have hidden fees because want to share the discounts we can provide due to years of experience.

One other factor that small business owners need not worry about is discovering that premium rate numbers are used to authorize the card transactions from the land line. Seymour Direct insures that there are no authorization costs, because all of the credit card machines organized by Seymour Direct have 0800 freephone numbers programmed into them.

Some providers reel you in with a low minimum monthly transaction fee and then hike the prices on individual transaction charges, we prefer not to constrain our customers in this way and so we spread the discounts across different package deals. You may not need to use the card terminal for certain months of the year due to your seasonal business, if so fill out our contact form here and give us a brief explanation and we can negotiate a deal for that period.

Remember, credit card payments are a crucial element which determines the success of your business, do not be pressurized into high prices simply because a bank or provider knows you are new to merchant services. Seymour Direct are happy to discuss any of your queries and will guide you step by step through the application process in an easy to understand format.

Despite the title of this post being “A History of Plastic Cards” the first form of credit in the UK, dating back to 1880, was not plastic but was in the form of a voucher. Provident Clothing Group issued customers with vouchers, which they would spend in store, before settling their outstanding debts when a company representative would later visit their homes.

In 1914 plastic cards weren’t yet on the scene as, in the US, Western Union provided their preferred customers with metal cards, allowing them to make deferred payments. This form of payment became known as “metal money”.

Gradually, from the mid twentieth century credit systems spread in the form of charge cards. These are similar to credit cards, however, the cardholders had to pay their outstanding balance in full every month.

It wasn’t until 29^th June 1966 that the UK’s first credit card was issued by Barclays. In the same year Interbank Card Association (ICA) formed, which today is known as MasterCard

Despite early cash machines arriving in 1967 it wasn’t until 1972 that Lloyds provided the first on-line ATM using plastic cards with a magnetic stripe and five years later the first company credit card was issued by Barclaycard.

In 1985/86 the LINK cash machine network was established, allowing bank withdrawals from the cash points of 33 members. The following year Barclaycard was again the forerunner. They were the first to introduce debit cards.

In the mid 90′s statistics reported that half of UK adults were regular cash machine holders and the same amount owner debit cards and it was in 1995 that debit card volume usage exceeded that of credit cards for the first time. Four years later, half of UK adults held credit cards.

In 2001 over half of UK retail spending is on plastic whilst over 100 million card payments were made on-line. In the past few years we have seen the introduction of chip and pin and there has been no halt in the growing dominance of plastic card payments, whether on the high street or on the Internet and it is clear that plastic cards are here to stay.