If you already accept card payments, the Card Payments Summary Box can provide a useful starting point for understanding what your business is actually paying.
It can then be used alongside recent merchant statements when comparing card processing costs, negotiating with your existing provider or considering whether to switch merchant account provider.
For businesses that have never examined their merchant service costs properly, this can be considerably more useful than comparing advertised transaction rates.
What Is the Card Payments Summary Box?
The Card Payments Summary Box is part of a package of remedies introduced following the Payment Systems Regulator's review of the UK card-acquiring market.
The PSR found that the market did not work well for many small and medium-sized merchants and larger merchants with annual card turnover of up to £50 million. Among the issues identified were difficulties understanding prices, comparing providers and switching card-acquiring services.
The Summary Box was designed to improve that position by presenting important price and non-price information in a more consistent format.
In simple terms, it is intended to help answer:
- What am I currently paying to accept card payments?
- What types of fees am I being charged?
- What services and contractual terms are attached to the account?
- How could I compare my existing service with another provider?
That makes it particularly relevant when reviewing merchant account fees or approaching the end of a merchant services contract.
Who Should Receive a Card Payments Summary Box?
This is an area where it is easy to oversimplify the rules.
The regulatory obligation does not simply say that every payment provider in the UK must send every merchant a Summary Box.
Under the Payment Systems Regulator's Specific Direction 14, the requirement applies to specified card-acquiring providers and relevant merchants with annual card turnover of up to £50 million.
The list of directed payment service providers can change, so businesses should refer to the current PSR direction rather than relying on an old list of provider names.
If your arrangement falls within the direction, the Summary Box should normally appear with periodic billing information and, where you use a merchant portal, be displayed prominently there.
If you cannot find one, check:
- your latest merchant statement
- your online payment or merchant portal
- billing or pricing sections within the portal
- communications from your card-acquiring provider
You can also ask your provider where your Card Payments Summary Box is located.
Why Was the Card Payments Summary Box Introduced?
Card processing pricing can be difficult to compare because the final cost of accepting cards rarely consists of one percentage alone.
A business might be paying a combination of:
- percentage transaction charges
- pence-per-transaction fees
- authorisation charges
- monthly account costs
- gateway charges
- terminal rental
- minimum monthly charges
- commercial-card costs
- international-card costs
- refund or chargeback fees
Pricing structures can also differ. One merchant may have a blended tariff while another has interchange-based pricing.
This makes a headline claim such as:
“Card processing from 0.6%”
far less useful than it initially appears.
The Summary Box is intended to provide a more consistent basis for understanding and comparing card-acquiring services.
Want to know whether your current card processing costs are competitive?
If you already take card payments, your Card Payments Summary Box plus three recent merchant statements gives us a much better starting point than a headline transaction rate.
Merchant Advice Service can help you understand your requirements before introducing you to payment providers that may be suitable.
Get personalised recommendations
What Information Is in a Card Payments Summary Box?
The PSR's implementation guidance groups the information into several areas.
Current contract information
This provides context around your existing card-acquiring arrangement and your use of the service.
The information is intended to include statistics relating to card use, total service charges and relevant contract information.
The PSR guidance specifies that figures within this section should use the same 12-month reporting period and that the period should have ended within the previous month.
Variable transaction fees
These are fees charged when a payment is made where the amount varies according to the value of the transaction.
Depending on the pricing structure, these charges can incorporate costs associated with:
The exact way they are presented depends on the payment provider and pricing model.
Fixed transaction fees
Some card processing charges are based on a fixed amount rather than the value of the transaction.
For example, a merchant could pay a percentage fee plus a fixed pence charge.
This is particularly important for businesses processing large numbers of low-value payments because a small fixed fee multiplied across thousands of transactions can materially affect the overall cost.
Charges for exceptions
The Summary Box can also show charges that arise only in particular circumstances.
Examples can include chargebacks and retrieval requests.
A business with a high level of refunds, disputes or payment exceptions should therefore avoid comparing providers solely on the standard successful transaction rate.
Worked transaction examples
Worked examples help demonstrate how fixed and variable fees combine for a particular payment.
This can be useful where the tariff initially looks difficult to interpret.
Recurring charges
These can include amounts paid regularly rather than per transaction, such as subscriptions or leases supplied as part of the acquiring service.
Depending on the arrangement, you may also encounter:
- monthly account charges
- gateway costs
- terminal rental
- service charges
- other recurring payment-service costs
Some products may be supplied and billed by a third party. Where that happens, a cost may not be captured in the same way within the Summary Box, which is one reason we recommend reviewing the underlying statements and contracts as well.
Service features
Price is not the only consideration when comparing card payment providers.
The Summary Box can also contain information about relevant service features and restrictions.
For a merchant, that wider comparison may include areas such as payment settlement, accepted payment methods or other features of the acquiring service.
Does the Summary Box Show Your Real Card Processing Rate?
It gives you much better information with which to understand your costs, but there is an important distinction between a quoted transaction rate and your effective card processing cost.
A merchant might have been sold an account based on a transaction rate of:
0.75%
but that does not necessarily mean the business is paying 0.75% of turnover in total card acceptance costs.
Once fixed transaction fees, monthly charges and other applicable costs are included, the effective cost may be different.
How to calculate an effective card processing rate
A simple starting calculation is:
Total relevant card processing costs ÷ card turnover × 100 = effective processing rate
For example, if a business processes £50,000 of card payments and pays £600 in relevant processing costs:
£600 ÷ £50,000 × 100 = 1.20%
That 1.20% figure gives a more useful starting point than looking at one headline transaction percentage.
However, make sure you understand which costs have been included. Terminal, gateway or other services supplied separately may need to be added before making a genuine like-for-like comparison.
Card Payments Summary Box vs Merchant Statement: What Is the Difference?
A Card Payments Summary Box and a merchant statement serve different purposes.
The Summary Box is designed to make key pricing, usage, service and contract information easier to understand and compare.
A merchant statement provides more detailed information about what actually happened during a particular billing period.
For a proper cost review, we prefer to consider both.
Useful payment review pack:
Card Payments Summary Box
+
Three recent merchant statements
This gives a prospective provider or adviser more information about both the existing pricing arrangement and the way the business actually processes payments.
For larger businesses, the analysis may need to go further. Our guide to auditing payment fees for high-turnover businesses explains the additional data that can become important at higher processing volumes.
What the Card Payments Summary Box Does Not Tell You
This is where businesses should be careful.
A Summary Box improves pricing transparency, but it does not automatically tell you:
- whether your current provider is the best provider for your business
- whether another acquirer would approve your business
- whether a cheaper quote would produce better payment performance
- whether switching would affect an existing integration
- whether a new provider will require a reserve
- whether settlement would improve or worsen
- whether your existing payment tokens can be migrated
- whether a new contract contains different commercial commitments
It is therefore a comparison tool, not a recommendation to switch.
This distinction is particularly important for higher-risk businesses, ecommerce merchants and companies with more complex payment technology.
What Is a Card Payments Trigger Message?
The Summary Box forms part of a wider set of measures introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator.
Another important element is the trigger message.
Its purpose is to remind merchants that they can review their current service, consider alternative providers and use the information contained within their Card Payments Summary Box.
For longer fixed-term contracts, the PSR guidance requires the relevant trigger message around 30 days before the contract ends. Different timing applies to shorter or non-fixed-term arrangements.
Where merchants use an online account dashboard, the trigger information must also be displayed there in accordance with the relevant rules.
Receiving a trigger message does not mean you have to switch.
It means it is a sensible time to ask:
- What are we paying?
- When does our current commitment end?
- Could the existing provider improve the deal?
- Would another payment provider better suit the business?
If you are approaching a renewal date, also read our guide to merchant services contract renewal.
The Online Quotation Tool Is Part of the Same System
The Summary Box is only one part of the PSR's comparison framework.
Directed card-acquiring providers are also required to provide an online quotation tool for relevant prospective merchants.
The idea is simple:
Your existing Summary Box shows information about your current arrangement. The provider's online quotation tool gives indicative information for a potential alternative.
The PSR requires key information such as:
- card turnover
- average transaction value
- merchant category code
to be used in generating indicative pricing and non-price information.
Importantly, the direction says that the online quotation tool should not require a prospective merchant to provide a telephone number or email address simply to generate the indicative pricing.
This gives merchants another way of carrying out an initial card payment cost comparison before deciding whether to request a full quotation.
Already have a Summary Box?
Don't just compare the headline percentage.
If possible, have your Card Payments Summary Box and three recent merchant statements available. That gives us a much clearer picture of your existing payment costs and how you currently take card payments.
Compare payment providers
Should You Renegotiate or Switch Card Payment Provider?
Finding a cost difference does not automatically mean changing provider is the right answer.
There are normally three broad options.
1. Stay with the existing provider
Your current service may already be competitive and operationally suitable.
If the pricing, technology, support, settlement and contract all work for the business, there may be little reason to move.
2. Renegotiate your current card processing fees
A merchant's processing profile changes over time.
You may now process more volume, have a different card mix or present a different risk profile from when the account was originally opened.
Your existing provider may therefore be prepared to review the commercial arrangement.
3. Switch merchant account provider
Switching may be appropriate where another provider offers a better combination of:
- overall processing costs
- settlement
- payment technology
- integration
- support
- contract terms
- underwriting fit
Before cancelling an existing merchant account, make sure any replacement account has completed the required underwriting and is ready to operate.
Our guide to switching merchant account provider covers the process in more detail.
Do Card Machine Contracts Have an 18-Month Limit?
This is related to the Card Payments Summary Box, but it is a separate regulatory measure and the distinction matters.
The PSR also introduced rules limiting the initial term of qualifying Point of Sale terminal lease and rental contracts to 18 months, followed by rolling arrangements.
That does not mean every merchant account, payment gateway or acquiring agreement in the UK is automatically limited to 18 months.
Card terminal rental, acquiring, gateway services, EPOS software and other payment products can involve different contractual relationships.
When considering a change of provider, establish exactly which contracts you have and which supplier is responsible for each one.
How to Use Your Card Payments Summary Box Before Getting Quotes
Before speaking with alternative payment providers, use the Summary Box to build a simple picture of your existing arrangement.
Record:
- annual card turnover
- average transaction value
- transaction charges
- fixed transaction fees
- recurring charges
- exception charges
- contract dates
- relevant service features
Then add information from your merchant statements such as:
- number of transactions
- card-present versus online payments
- commercial-card usage
- international-card usage
- refund levels
- chargebacks
- settlement
This creates a far better basis for obtaining and comparing quotes.
Our card processing quote comparison guide explains how to make sure different providers are pricing the same transaction profile.
How Merchant Advice Service Can Help
Merchant Advice Service is an independent payment advice and provider-matching service.
We help businesses understand their payment requirements before introducing them to providers that may be suitable.
If you are reviewing an existing merchant account, providing your Card Payments Summary Box and three recent merchant statements can help us understand:
- how you are currently priced
- the services you are using
- your approximate effective processing costs
- where additional charges may be arising
- whether the main issue is pricing, technology, settlement or provider suitability
We can then consider whether it makes sense to remain with your existing arrangement, renegotiate or explore alternative providers.
You can also browse merchant account providers through The Payments Directory®.
Reviewing your card processing costs?
Tell us about your existing payment setup and what you would like to improve. If you already process cards, have your Summary Box and recent statements available where possible.
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Editorial Note
This guide is written and reviewed by Merchant Advice Service to help UK businesses understand card-acquiring costs, merchant account pricing and payment-provider options.
Merchant Advice Service is not a card acquirer and does not make final underwriting or pricing decisions on behalf of payment providers.
Our information, matching and introduction service is free to businesses. MAS may receive commission or a referral fee from some commercial partners where an introduction results in a completed product or account.
Provider suitability, pricing, contract terms and underwriting depend on the individual business and the provider's own criteria.
Sources & References
- Payment Systems Regulator – Specific Direction 14: provision of card-acquiring information and Card Payments Summary Boxes.
- Payment Systems Regulator – Specific Direction 15: requirements relating to merchant trigger messages.
- Payment Systems Regulator – Card-Acquiring Market Remedies Final Decision: background and objectives of the Summary Box, online quotation tool, trigger messages and POS-terminal measures.
- Payment Systems Regulator – Implementation Advice: Summary Box, online quotation tool and trigger-message format and content guidance.
