Maestro cards/Realex

[Oceanwaver]

I have a customer who are based in ireland and have a very successful website. They currently process laser, visa etc....Now looking to implement Maestro (as lots of Uk traffic) but the banks are telling them that unless they have a uk bank account and address they can't process Maestro.

Has anyone come up against this crazy policy? Any info/workaround would be great

Thanks

 

[mneylon]

Maestro is basically Mastercard, so I don't think there's any difference ...

 

[Oceanwaver]

unfortunately there is - they can process mastercards and visa from the Uk but can't with Maestro.
It's a ridiculous situation

 

[mneylon]

Hmmm

Which bank are they with over here?

I think there is a way to get a UK account setup via most of the Irish banks that would allow you to process Sterling ...

 

[Wild Thing]

Depending on volume of traffic/sales, sign up to paypal web payments pro and process the Maestro cards offline via the virtual terminal. Another added benifit is also giving your customers the option to pay via their paypal account should they have one. It is a common problem with debit cards and international borders

 

[Gerry23]

Maestro in the UK is essentially switch or Solo. These are GBP cards so transactions can't settle to a Euro merchant account.

You may be able to accept other international Maestro cards such as dual branded carte bleu cards issued in France.

To accept UK issued Maestro you do need to have a Sterling merchant account.

Ger
Realex payments

 

[Oceanwaver]

Thanks for all the feedback.
Paypal and manual settlement isn't an option as there are loads of transactions.

Ger thanks for the clarifications - all I'm interested in here is accepting UK issued Maestro. So without a UK STG account I just can't do this? There's no workaround/solution? Could AIB set up a STG account for us in Ireland?

This wasn't meant to be a "giving out" post about Realex...I've used Realex on loads of projects down through the years and they are genuinely very good.


Thanks

 

[CiaranR]

Could AIB set up a STG account for us in Ireland?

yes