--- title: "Merchant Services Card Acquisition" ocid: "ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977" canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977" markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977.md" json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977.json" source: "Contracts Finder" current_stage: "Planning" buyer: "ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL" published: "2024-11-08" --- # Merchant Services Card Acquisition Buyer: ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL Current stage: Planning OCID: ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977 [View canonical contract page](https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977) [Download OCDS JSON](https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977.json) ## Summary Essex County Council is conducting a pre-market engagement in preparation for procuring a Merchant Services Solution, focusing on acquiring card services that can handle various payment types. The contract falls under the banking services industry category and is located in the East of England, specifically Chelmsford. The procurement process is currently in the planning stage, with an engagement end date set for 22nd November 2024. This process aims to identify suppliers capable of providing comprehensive solutions, including the capacity to handle electronic payments, supply a variety of hardware terminals, and integrate with the council's finance systems. This tender presents significant opportunities for businesses specialising in merchant services, particularly those offering innovative and versatile payment processing solutions. Companies that provide secure and diverse hardware solutions, possess compatibility with finance systems like Access Suite/Group/PaySuite, and can deliver high transaction volumes are well-suited to compete. The engagement is valuable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as voluntary, community, and social enterprises (VCSEs), offering a platform for such entities to contribute to and grow within the public sector market by supplying back-end merchant card acquiring services to Essex County Council. ## Notice Pre-market Engagement for the Provision of a Merchant Service for Essex County Council Essex County Council (ECC) is at an early stage in procuring a Merchant Service Solution, and prior to formulating any formal procurement opportunity, seeks input from the market. The council is looking for the intended solution to provide the following: a. Provide back-end Merchant Card Acquiring Services to take all ECC card and wallet type, including but not limited to ApplePay, AndroidPay and SamsungPay or take card payments as part of the day-to-day services provided by ECC. These include but are not limited to all electronic payments, ECC Registration Services, ACL, Blue Badge, Libraries, County Parks and Outdoor Centres and many more. b. needs to be able to supply a variety of hardware solutions including: Fixed terminals, Mobile terminals, Bluetooth terminals, Contactless terminals, Unattended terminals, P2PE terminals, Virtual terminals. c. Need to have accreditation with our Finance System provider Access Suite/ Access Group/ PaySuite as part of the interface. d. Provide any current and upcoming innovations on a quarterly/ annual basis. e. Potential and/or known demand/volumes for requirement, e.g. Six training courses for 10 attendees or volume of goods. Currently, we have 40+ merchant IDs. 29 MIDs are used for terminals supplied by current Merchant Acquirer and rest of them are used for terminals supplied by Access Group and average volume of transaction per annum is c480,000. f. Anticipated interfaces within ECC systems, specifically software/hardware which may need to work on ECC's infrastructure. We will require an interface for reporting purposes. This would be required via HTTPS API, SFTP and secured email with the option for access via Single Sign on access. Answers to questions submitted should be no more than 500 words per question and should be submitted your response via MS Form no later than 5:00 p.m. on 22/11/2024. ## Key Details | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Publication source | Contracts Finder | | Latest notice | https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/cdb1f0b8-3f03-44c0-96d2-823fe78e0682 | | Notice type | Market Engagement Notice | | Procurement type | Standard | | Procurement category | Not specified | | Procurement method | Not Specified | | Procurement method details | Not specified | | Tender suitability | SME, VCSE | | Awardee scale | Not specified | | All stages | Planning | ## Dates | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Publication date | 8 Nov 2024 | | Submission deadline | Not specified | | Future notice date | 22 Nov 2024 | | Award date | Not specified | | Contract period | Not specified | | Recurrence | Not specified | ## Values | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Tender value | Not specified | | Lots value | Not specified | | Awards value | Not specified | | Contracts value | Not specified | ## Status | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Tender status | Planning | | Lots status | Not specified | | Awards status | Not specified | | Contracts status | Not specified | ## Buyer | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Main buyer | ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL | | Locality | CHELMSFORD | | Post town | Chelmsford | | Postcode | CM1 1QH | | Country | England | | ITL 1 | TLH East (England) | | ITL 2 | TLH3 Essex | | ITL 3 | TLH36 Heart of Essex | | Local authority | Chelmsford | | Electoral ward | Moulsham and Central | | Westminster constituency | Chelmsford | | Delivery location | Not specified | ## CPV Codes ### Divisions - 66 - Financial and insurance services ### Codes - 66110000 - Banking services - 66121000 - Mergers and acquisition services - 66122000 - Corporate finance and venture capital services ## Release History - 8 Nov 2024 at 14:59 - Planning - Market Engagement Notice - https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/cdb1f0b8-3f03-44c0-96d2-823fe78e0682 ## Documents - https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/cdb1f0b8-3f03-44c0-96d2-823fe78e0682 8th November 2024 - Early engagement notice on Contracts Finder - https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/25b9becb-824b-4e61-b8c9-86c9cee5a4e1 Merchant Service - Early Market Engagement Questionnaire - https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=TzK0qFwVFUKg8X7YzJqZL-4ph54T7bNNrAz-SHd59gVUM1RTVVNLV0g5WkRWNVM0SE9YNEdTWjJBQi4u Please refer to high level service requirement details as attached document and submit your response via MS Form by 5 pm, 22/11/2024. ## Notice URLs - https://www.essex.gov.uk/ ## Provenance This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-c5ecc90a-fb80-4a6a-9144-d14fba6f6977.json.