Quick Summary
The Payments Directory®: A Different Way to Compare Payment Providers
Most payment-provider comparisons start with price.
We think that is the wrong place to start.
A payment provider can offer an excellent transaction rate and still be completely unsuitable for your business.
It may not:
- Accept your sector
- Support your merchant category
- Integrate with your booking system, EPOS or website
- Offer the recurring-payment model you need
- Support your customers' countries
- Settle in the currencies you require
- Accept your transaction values
- Support your marketplace or platform structure
- Be comfortable with your chargeback or future-delivery profile
So before asking:
“Who is cheapest?”
Merchant Advice Service starts with a different question:
“Who can actually support this business?”
That is the thinking behind The Payments Directory®.
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What is The Payments Directory®?
The Payments Directory® is a payment-provider research and matching platform operated as part of Merchant Advice Service.
It was developed to help businesses narrow down payment providers according to their actual requirements rather than simply comparing headline transaction rates.
Businesses can be matched using criteria including:
- Industry and business model
- Merchant Category Code (MCC)
- Provider risk appetite
- Business location
- Customer geography
- Payment methods
- Currencies
- Integrations
- Processing requirements
The merchant can then decide which provider or providers they want to speak to.
The service is free for merchants to use.
Merchant Advice Service was founded in 2016 after identifying a lack of simple, non-biased information in the payments market. The Payments Directory® developed from the same problem: businesses needed a better way to work out where they actually fitted before applying.
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Why comparing payment providers is harder than comparing broadband or insurance
Payments are sometimes presented like a commodity.
Provider A charges X.
Provider B charges Y.
Choose the cheapest.
In reality, payment providers have different:
- Underwriting policies
- Sector appetite
- Geographic coverage
- Technology
- Acquiring relationships
- Payment methods
- Integrations
- Settlement options
- Risk tolerances
A restaurant looking for two card machines is not the same requirement as a travel company taking £5,000 deposits nine months before departure.
Neither is comparable with:
- A marketplace paying thousands of sellers
- A SaaS platform wanting to monetise its customers' payments
- A watch dealer accepting £20,000 remote transactions
- An online pharmacy selling prescription products
They may all technically be looking for payment processing.
But they should not necessarily be looking at the same providers.
MAS insight: payment comparison should happen in two stages
We think payment-provider comparison works better when it happens in this order:
Stage 1 — Can the provider support the business?
Look at:
sector + risk + MCC + geography + payment method + technology + transaction profile
Stage 2 — Which suitable provider offers the best overall commercial outcome?
Then compare:
processing cost + payment performance + settlement + reserve + contract + support + functionality
Doing those stages the other way around can create problems.
A 0.3% cheaper provider isn't cheaper if it declines the application.
And an approved provider isn't necessarily the best choice simply because it was the first one willing to say yes.
The eight things we look at when matching a payment provider
This is the basic methodology behind The Payments Directory®.
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1. What does the business actually do?
This sounds obvious.
It isn't.
“Ecommerce” tells us almost nothing.
Consider:
UK ecommerce travel company taking £1,500 deposits for trips departing six months later.
That tells us considerably more.
Likewise:
Software company
could mean a straightforward B2B SaaS subscription business.
Or it could mean a platform that enables thousands of customers to take payments themselves.
Provider matching starts with understanding how the business actually makes money and how payment fits into it.
2. What is the Merchant Category Code?
Merchant Category Codes help classify the type of business accepting payment.
They matter because acquiring providers and card schemes use merchant classification within payment processing and risk management.
But MCC should not become a shortcut for understanding the whole business.
Two merchants with similar classifications can still have very different:
- Transaction sizes
- Customer locations
- Fulfilment periods
- Chargebacks
- Payment channels
- Product types
MAS insight: MCC is a filter, not an underwriting decision
MCC can help narrow the market.
It cannot tell the whole story.
The provider still needs to understand the merchant behind the code. Merchant Category Code is one of the signals that can help narrow the provider search, particularly where a business operates in a sector requiring specialist underwriting. However, MCC should be assessed alongside the merchant’s actual business model, transaction profile and processing requirements. Read our Merchant Category Code (MCC) reference guide for more detail.
3. Will the provider accept the sector and business model?
This can eliminate providers before pricing is even relevant.
Provider appetite can differ substantially in sectors such as:
- Travel
- Gambling
- CBD
- Pharmaceuticals
- Luxury goods
- Subscription businesses
- Financial services
- Marketplace/platform models
- Adult businesses
- Higher-risk ecommerce
Even within the same sector, appetite can vary.
For example:
UK-licensed gambling
is not necessarily treated the same way as:
international gambling across multiple jurisdictions.
And:
high-street pharmacy
is not the same payment proposition as:
online prescribing + dispensing + delivery.
The Payments Directory® is intended to make those distinctions more useful than simply categorising everything as “high risk”.
4. How does the business take payment?
Payment method matters.
A merchant may require:
- Card terminal
- Ecommerce checkout
- MOTO
- Payment links
- Recurring card payments
- Digital wallets
- Pay by Bank
- Direct Debit
- Multiple payment methods
That requirement can immediately change the shortlist.
For example, a provider suitable for a conventional card-present retailer may not necessarily be the best fit for a business requiring:
customer-initiated first payment → stored credential → merchant-initiated recurring transactions
Likewise, a high-value merchant may need a provider comfortable with £20,000+ transactions rather than simply one offering a standard ecommerce gateway.
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5. What does the provider need to integrate with?
This is one of the most overlooked parts of payment comparison.
A provider can be:
- Competitively priced
- Comfortable with the sector
- Happy with the turnover
and still be useless if it doesn't work with the technology the merchant needs.
Integrations can include:
- Ecommerce platform
- EPOS
- Booking system
- CRM
- Accounting software
- Membership platform
- Vertical SaaS product
- Mobile app
- Bespoke API
MAS insight: Integration can eliminate the cheapest provider immediately
Suppose:
Provider A costs £800 less per month
but doesn't integrate with the merchant's booking system.
The business then needs:
- Custom development
- Manual reconciliation
- Staff workarounds
- A second system
That £800 “saving” may disappear very quickly.
This is why The Payments Directory® treats integration as part of provider suitability, not an optional question to ask after a quote has arrived.
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6. Where are the business and its customers?
A UK company does not necessarily have UK-only payment requirements.
It might have customers across:
- UK
- EU
- USA
- Middle East
- Asia
Likewise, a European merchant might have substantial UK activity.
Provider matching can therefore need to consider separately:
Where is the merchant incorporated?
Where are its directors?
Where are its customers?
Where is payment activity taking place?
Where does it want to expand next?
The Payments Directory® includes location and geographic criteria because a provider's ability to support one country does not automatically mean it supports every market the merchant needs.
7. What does the merchant's processing profile look like?
Turnover alone isn't enough.
Useful information can include:
- Monthly processing volume
- Number of transactions
- Average transaction
- Maximum transaction
- Refunds
- Chargebacks
- Card-present/card-not-present mix
- International-card percentage
- Current reserve
- Settlement
- Previous provider history
Consider:
Merchant A
£500,000 monthly card turnover made up of £30 transactions.
Merchant B
£500,000 monthly turnover made up of £10,000 transactions.
Merchant C
£500,000 collected today for travel taking place months later.
Same turnover.
Very different acquiring profiles.
8. What does the merchant actually want to improve?
Not every merchant needs “a new provider”.
The real problem might be:
Our current rate is too high.
or:
Our £20,000 transactions keep declining.
or:
Our gateway won't integrate with the new booking platform.
or:
We need EUR and USD settlement.
or:
Our reserve no longer reflects the size of our business.
or:
We want to embed payments into our SaaS platform.
or:
Our merchant account has been terminated.
The solution should start with the problem.
Why declined merchants should not simply keep applying
This is particularly important for businesses with more complex requirements.
A merchant applies to Provider A.
Declined.
Provider B.
Declined.
Provider C.
Declined.
At this point the sensible question is not:
“Who else can we apply to?”
It is:
“Why are these applications being declined?”
Possible reasons could include:
- Provider appetite
- Sector
- Geography
- Transaction profile
- Previous processing
- Chargebacks
- Financial position
- Product
- Website
- Regulatory requirements
- Application information
Matching is especially valuable here because the objective should be to approach providers where there is a credible fit, not simply generate a longer list of applications.
The Payments Directory® does not guarantee approval.
Underwriting remains with the provider.
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MAS insight: More provider applications do not necessarily mean more choice
There is a tendency in payments to treat ten applications as better than two.
We don't think that is necessarily true.
For a complex merchant, we would rather identify:
two providers with genuine appetite
than:
ten recognisable brands that are unlikely to support the requirement.
That is the difference between provider discovery and provider matching.
High-turnover merchants need a different type of comparison
An established merchant processing:
£500,000 or £1m+ per month
may already have a perfectly functioning payment provider.
Its problem might be optimisation rather than acceptance.
The matching process can therefore start with:
- Current provider
- Actual processing statements
- Card mix
- Authorisation performance
- International costs
- Gateway
- Reserve
- Settlement
- Integrations
Only then does it make sense to compare alternatives.
For a substantial merchant, changing payment provider to save a few basis points can be a poor decision if it damages:
- Payment acceptance
- Settlement
- Reconciliation
- Integrations
- Customer experience
Suitability still comes before price.
The difference is that, for an established merchant, commercial performance becomes part of suitability.
So when should price be compared?
Once we know which providers can realistically support the requirement.
Then price absolutely matters.
Depending on the merchant, that might include:
- Blended processing rate
- IC+
- IC++
- Gateway costs
- Authorisation fees
- Terminal rental
- Cross-border costs
- Commercial-card costs
- FX
- Chargeback fees
- Refund fees
- Payout fees
- Platform fees
- Reserve
- Settlement
But the meaningful comparison is between appropriate providers.
Not every provider on the market.
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How The Payments Directory® works
The principle is deliberately simple.
Step 1 — Tell us about the business
This might include:
sector + location + payment requirements + turnover + integrations + currencies
Step 2 — Narrow the provider market
The Payments Directory® uses the merchant's requirements to identify relevant providers from the information available within the platform.
Step 3 — Review the fit
The merchant can look at the providers that appear relevant to its requirements.
Step 4 — Choose who to speak to
The merchant remains in control of which provider or providers it wishes to explore further.
Step 5 — Provider underwriting
Where the merchant proceeds, the relevant payment provider conducts its own underwriting and makes the final decision on:
- Acceptance
- Pricing
- Reserve
- Settlement
- Contract
- Technical approval
The Payments Directory® does not replace provider underwriting.
What The Payments Directory® does not do
Transparency matters here.
It does not guarantee merchant-account approval
Final approval always remains with the provider.
It does not make underwriting decisions for banks or PSPs
We can help identify potential fit. We cannot approve an application on a provider's behalf.
It does not mean every payment provider in the market will be shown
The Payments Directory® is a researched provider-matching resource rather than a claim to represent every possible payment provider globally.
It does not make the cheapest provider automatically the best provider
Pricing is one part of the comparison.
It does not replace legal, regulatory or compliance advice
Where a merchant's business model raises regulatory questions, appropriate professional advice may still be required.
Why Merchant Advice Service built The Payments Directory®
Merchant Advice Service has worked with businesses looking for payment solutions since 2016.
Over that time, one problem has appeared repeatedly.
Businesses often start the payment search with a brand name or price.
They ask:
“Should I use Provider A or Provider B?”
before establishing whether either provider is appropriate.
For more complex merchants, the question should often come one stage earlier:
“What type of provider actually fits this business?”
The Payments Directory® was created to make that first stage easier.
Instead of:
provider → merchant tries to fit provider
we want the process to be:
merchant requirement → suitable provider options
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The Payments Directory® is not designed to replace human advice
Some merchants have straightforward requirements.
They may be perfectly comfortable researching their options themselves.
Others don't.
For example:
Those businesses may need a conversation before provider matching makes sense.
That's why Merchant Advice Service combines self-serve provider research with specialist support for more complex requirements. The existing MAS site positions the directory around both self-service provider discovery and tailored matching against factors such as MCC, integrations, location, currencies and payment methods.
MAS insight: Sometimes the correct answer is “don't apply yet”
This is something a pure lead-generation form struggles to do.
A merchant may need to:
- Clarify its regulatory position
- Fix its website
- Understand why a previous account terminated
- Produce licensing information
- Collect processing statements
- Explain its money flow
- Resolve chargebacks
- Finish an integration specification
before approaching another provider.
Sending the application immediately may create another decline.
Good provider matching sometimes means slowing the application down first.
How Merchant Advice Service is paid
The Payments Directory® is free for merchants to use.
Merchant Advice Service is a commercial business.
Where a merchant chooses to proceed with a provider introduced through MAS, Merchant Advice Service may receive a referral fee, commission or ongoing commercial payment from that provider.
This does not change the principle behind the matching process:
provider suitability should be based on the merchant's requirements, not simply on the cheapest advertised price or the size of an available commission.
Merchants remain free to decide whether they want to proceed with any provider introduced through MAS.
Who created The Payments Directory®?
The Payments Directory® is part of Merchant Advice Service, founded by Libby James in 2016.
Libby's work focuses particularly on:
- Merchant payments
- Payment-provider selection
- High-risk and complex applications
- Payment gateways
- Integrations
- High-value payments
- Provider matching
The Payments Directory® developed from MAS's experience of helping merchants work out where to apply and why, rather than simply giving businesses another list of payment companies.
Find payment providers based on your business - not somebody else's
A payment provider that works brilliantly for another business may be completely wrong for yours.
Start with:
what you sell
how customers pay
where they are
what technology you use
how much you process
and:
what you need the payment provider to do
Then compare the providers capable of supporting that requirement.
That is the approach behind The Payments Directory®.
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About Merchant Advice Service
Merchant Advice Service provides free, independent guidance to businesses looking for help with card payments, payment gateways and more complex payment requirements.
Where appropriate, MAS may introduce a business to a relevant payment provider. We may receive a referral fee or commission if an introduction results in a completed account or service.
MAS does not necessarily compare every provider in the market, and all applications remain subject to the relevant provider's own assessment, underwriting and approval.
The information on this page is intended as general payment guidance and does not constitute legal, regulatory or financial advice.
