Financial transaction processing and clearing-house services

Tender description

This tender is for the provision of Merchant Services for processing, authorisation and settlement of the University's debit and credit transactions via all payment channels including: customer present (Chip and PIN/contactless payments), customer not present (Mail Order / Telephone Order) and online (e-commerce). The University is seeking to develop efficient and cost-effective merchant service arrangements which will be capable of meeting future market and technological changes, and which will meet, and often exceed, user expectations. It is looking for a relationship with an organisation which it can be confident will fulfil all the University's current and future requirements. It is important that any potential acquiring partner can add value through an effective dedicated corporate support team backed up by a proactive education sector specialist Relationship Manager. The current annual payment card turnover is approximately 18 200 000 GBP across over 173 000 transactions. The University is currently not benefitting from DCC, but wishes to address that through this tender process. Accordingly, the University will be required to appoint a DCC capable PSP. To enable it to fully evaluate potential across all tenderers, your tender response must include information and costs of your preferred PSP that is capable of supporting DCC in conjunction with WPM Education. The University currently has circa 25 terminals. These are provided by First Data on various rolling contracts. The appointed acquirer will be expected to replace these on a rolling basis with the most suitable option, be it fixed, Bluetooth or mobile. The University expects these to be PCI DSS compliant (version 3.2) terminal solutions. It should be noted that the University is not PCI-DSS compliant. It has employed a specialist in this area to achieve this and works with Sysnet as its QSA. Compliance is being dealt with on a channel by channel basis. Your response should advise what additional support you could provide the University in achieving and then maintaining compliance. The Appointee must show a commitment to the continuing development of efficient and cost-effective merchant services, and demonstrate a knowledgeable and pro-active approach to the needs of the University and the wider Higher Education sector. The University requires charging arrangements that are economic, transparent and provide incentives to both parties to operate the services efficiently. Tenderers are required to quote transaction charges on an Interchange Plus or Plus Plus basis. The University will wish to take advantage of technological and other developments during the period of the appointment where these offer improved service and value for money. University of Northampton will expect the advice and support of the appointee to assist in taking advantage of such new developments, both imminent and longer term. It is particularly keen to develop digital Wallet capability at the new Waterside campus development. Tenderers must submit a detailed implementation plan and timetable showing milestones, responsibilities, critical path analysis, disaster recovery procedures etc. from award to implementation. Tenderers must explain their processes for ensuring the timetable is achievable and that adequate resources are identified from both service provider and client perspectives.