---
title: "Merchant Acquiring Services"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "London Borough of Brent"
published: "2026-09-11"
---

# Merchant Acquiring Services

Buyer: London Borough of Brent  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4

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## Summary

The London Borough of Brent is procuring merchant acquiring services to enable residents and customers to pay the council by debit and credit card. The service supports card payments for council services through online, telephone and other customer access channels, and is intended to keep the payment journey accessible, user-friendly and straightforward. It is a financial transaction processing and clearing-house service, delivered for the council in Brent, London. The requirement supports payment collection across several council departments and connects with the council’s financial and customer-facing systems. Suppliers operating payment acquiring services, card transaction processing and related support would be relevant, particularly those able to serve a local authority with substantial and business-critical payment activity.

The procurement has reached the award stage and the tender is complete. Brent used a direct award to BARCLAYS BANK UK PLC, under a single completed lot, with the award recorded as pending signature. The award date is 11 September 2026 and the planned contract period is 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2028. The awarded value is £900,000 excluding VAT, or £1,080,000 including VAT. The council justified the direct award on technical and operational grounds: changing supplier before the existing contract expires would require complex transitions across several financial systems and could disrupt income collection. The contract is above the relevant threshold. A signature milestone was scheduled for 30 September 2026.

This procurement indicates sustained demand from Brent for a merchant acquiring partner able to process high volumes of debit and credit card payments for residents and customers. A credible competitor for a future requirement would need proven local-authority or similarly complex public-sector acquiring experience, robust transaction processing and clearing-house capability, and the capacity to support online, telephone and other customer payment channels. It would also need to integrate with multiple financial and customer-facing systems, work across departments with differing requirements, and manage a controlled transition without interrupting payment collection. Strong technical delivery, operational resilience, customer accessibility and practical support for system change would be important differentiators. Suppliers should be able to demonstrate that their platform and implementation team can handle a business-critical council-wide service.

## Notice

Merchant Acquiring is an essential contract from a financial perspective as it is necessary to enable residents and customers to pay the council by debit and credit card, over PS100m a year is collected by the council using this contract. This service is a key part of the council's support systems, and essential for the council to be able to collect payments by card as people expect in 2026. The contract helps enable the goals set out in the Customer Access Strategy to strive to make the online customer journey accessible, user-friendly and straightforward, as customers expect to be able to pay for services online using their cards.

### Procurement Information

This is a complex contract to re-procure, involving both a complex, technical procurement, and multiple council departments with differing specifications. If awarded to a different supplier then there is significant work to transition several of the council's financial systems to use the new supplier which would not be possible for technical and operational reasons before the existing contract expires. The Council cannot risk the disruption to this service as this would impact income collection via e-commerce, online or telephone payments from residents and customers. Therefore, Officers intend to use this time in an effective way to plan a new procurement exercise and procure compliantly a suitably experienced supplier to deliver and support the transition to a possible new supplier of merchant acquiring services.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/086649-2026 |
| Notice type | UK5 - Transparency Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Direct |
| Procurement method details | Direct award |
| Tender suitability | Not specified |
| Awardee scale | Large |
| All stages | Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 11 Sep 2026 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | Not specified |
| Contract period | 1 Oct 2026 - 31 Mar 2028 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | £900,000 |
| Contracts value | Not specified |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Complete |
| Lots status | Complete |
| Awards status | Pending |
| Contracts status | Not specified |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | London Borough of Brent |
| Locality | WEMBLEY |
| Postcode area | Harrow |
| Postcode | HA9 0FJ |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI7 Outer London - West and North West |
| ITL 3 | TLI72 Brent |
| Local authority | Brent |
| Electoral ward | Wembley Park |
| Westminster constituency | Brent West |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 1 |
| Supplier names | Barclays Bank PLC |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 66 - Financial and insurance services

### Codes

- 66172000 - Financial transaction processing and clearing-house services

## Release History

- 11 Sep 2026 at 17:34 - Award - UK5 - Transparency Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/086649-2026

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/086649-2026
  11th September 2026 - Transparency notice on Find a Tender

## Notice URLs

- http://www.barclays.co.uk
- http://www.brent.gov.uk/
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## 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-h6vhtk-06f8a4. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06f8a4.json.