Merchant Acquirer Services

TfGM has a range of strategic priorities that impact on the need for merchant acquirer services, including 'PAYGO' contactless payments on Metrolink trams, cycle hire and bus reform. Given the criticality of these projects, their associated programmes and project timeframes, and due to the very close interaction of the payment processing / merchant acquirer services with other systems operated by TfGM, a change in supplier at this point in the programmes mentioned above (amongst others) would add significant risk to the continued provision of payment solutions and services across TfGM, taking into account the complexity of the requirements and the integration required. Most significantly, the contactless payments solution would require significant rework and regression testing for the processing of transit payments. Payment processing for transit is far more inherently complex than for other payment channels, and suppliers of the other systems that need to interact with the payment processing /merchant acquirer services have their own specifications to meet the card schemes requirements for transit. It is highly likely that any new supplier of payment processing / merchant acquirer services would be required to re-accredit the contactless scheme. This end-to-end process would take a period of time and require significant interaction with other suppliers in the payments process, and adds significant risk of disruption to existing customer facing services on TfGM's Metrolink and Drivesafe services. Appointing a new supplier would also provide challenges with respect to 'waivers' that have previously been agreed between the card schemes and the current supplier. Again, this would require significant time to ensure the same waivers would remain in place, and would add risk to the timescales associated with the franchised bus network, as well as maintaining provision on the existing Metrolink payment schemes. It is therefore the intention of TfGM to progress these programmes to move to an operational environment, gather data on customer card payments, and engage with the market once the schemes are in operation.