June 2007
Internet Shopping Figures
The recent growth of internet shopping has been impressive. In 2005, the year with the most recent approved figures, the value of internet sales by businesses to households was £21.4bn – an increase of 30 per cent on the previous year, and more than four times higher than sales of £5.0bn in 2002. Also in 2005, internet shopping sales accounted for almost three per cent of total UK household spending, compared with less than one per cent in 2002, again nearly a fourfold increase. The Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) estimated the number of online transactions in 2005 at 372 million. (Office of Fair Trading, June 2007)
March 2007
Open Source eCommerce
ChronoPay, a leading open source ecommerce solution, has announced a sponsorship deal of osCommerce. There are numerous ecommerce solutions available to merchants but open source options can often be the lowest cost and most feature rich choice if you have some technical confidence.
Many web developers use osCommerce (or similar Zen Cart) to develop their clients ecommerce sites and the backing of the osCommerce project by ChronoPay merely underlines this growing trend. osCommerce offers a wide range of out-of-the-box features that allow online stores to be setup quickly and with relative ease. As it is an open source solution it is available for free. The solution currently powers more than 10,000 live shops around the world. The success of osCommerce has been accelerated by its large, active webmaster community, in which members share ideas and assist each other in development.
"ChronoPay strongly supports the osCommerce project," said Ido Schiferli, ChronoPay's European Marketing Manager. "The osCommerce shopping cart combines a rich feature set and powerful online shopping cart functionality, which will allow our store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimal effort and with no software costs, license fees, or limitations involved. When combined with the ChronoPay payment module for osCommerce, which is easy to integrate, our merchants are able to rapidly and economically launch their online shops".
It is interesting to note that ChronoPay sees the main objective of the partnership to be making it easier and more cost effective for businesses to trade online. Let's hope that trend continues across the payments industry.
December 2006
Sage buys Protx
Accounts software firm Sage has paid £20m to acquire UK merchant services firm Protx. Protx, established in 2001, provides online payment services for small and medium businesses in the UK, with a customer base of over 10,000 businesses (growing by 350 a month). Sage said the "expanding and highly fragmented market" for payment services that allow small businesses to sell goods online is fast expanding but poorly serviced by the larger payment processing companies. Acquiring Protx follows its strategy to provide a broad range of business services to small businesses, enabling customers to integrate merchant services with accounting, stock control, and CRM applications.
New SECPay Merchant Interface
To match growing merchant expectations a number of payment solutions have invested in their back-office admin areas to improve the functionality, reporting and usability of their service. The latest to do so is SECPay with the launch of their new SECNET area. This advanced merchant interface is at the leading edge of online payment tools and well worth checking out.
November 2005
Graphing Enhancements
Due to demand from solution providers, the site Graphing module has been redone to allow more than 25 providers to be displayed at once. Please use the tool to see this working. This also involves randomisation of the display of solution providers to underline the impartiality of the site. A different order is presented to the user on each new session they complete.
October 2005
Gavin Breeze founded DataCash in 1996 and is now Business Development Director. DataCash is now the leading bank-independent outsource payment processor in the UK. It processes over 6m credit card transactions with a value of around £1/2 billion in value each month. Transaction volumes processed on behalf of its clients increase by approximately 50% each year as the e-commerce market continues to expand.
June 2005
BT ePayments included in Tool. BT ePayments - BT Buynet is included in the PSP section of the product database. This complements the BT click & buy Post Paid Account Service.
February 2005
New Solution Provider Chronopay added to solution provider database in the Bureau section.
PayPal changes its categorisation from Person 2 Person to Bureau. PayPal is now known as PayPal Merchant Services. Importantly, consumers now do NOT need to have a PayPal account and can pay with a credit card or debit card with this service.
November 2004
The electronic payments site continues to develop with five new providers added in the last two months:
Person to Person payments
Payment Service Providers
Post Paid Account
A full list of all providers can be found on the Product Information Pages. You can register to use our product and cost comparison service that will allow you to evaluate these providers with the other major players in the marketplace.
October 2003
The Electronic Payments team are pleased to see the site featured on the BBC website in the Money Box programme site.
BBC Money Box Article, 25th October, 2003
Launch Release
Quotes from the Electronic Payments Industry
Barclaycard Merchant Services & ePDQ are pleased to be working with the Dti on this venture which will provide a high level of impartial information regarding online trading to the SME market. Barclaycard Merchant Services & ePDQ are dedicated to helping the SME market move into the online marketplace and this is an initiative that we feel will provide an uncomplicated source for research and planning for any business.
Bill Thomson
Head of Product Management & Development
Internet Payments, Barclaycard Merchant Services
E-business requires the right mix of technical, commercial and educational elements. The electronic payments website, supported by the Business Link and Scottish Enterprise, provides the right mix and now that the pioneering days of e-commerce are past no organisation has an excuse not to become involved. NetBanx is pleased to support this impartial resource and sees the initiative as timely, complete and well targeted.
Howary Elsey
Head of MultiPay
The Transact Group Ltd (Netbanx)
A great example of public and private sectors working together to help inform and support the UK e-business community
Zeni Tekeli
Relationships Manager
Splash Plastic
Secpay are very pleased to be involved in a project that will be such a comprehensive resource for SMEs. The online tool will be particularly helpful in assisting with the financial planning of an online business.
Guy Wales
Business Development Manager
SECPay
Delighted to contribute and be part of such a positive UK wide e-business initiative that is designed to help the business community
Russel Wilkinson
Datacash