Pagamenti in Regno Unito

Acquiring

Acquiring locale nel Regno Unito su tutti i principali circuiti, Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Diners. La ridondanza degli acquirenti significa che il traffico del merchant passa automaticamente tra gli acquirenti del Regno Unito in caso di carico o incidente.

Regolamentazione

La PSD2 e le regole di Strong Customer Authentication della FCA si applicano all'e-commerce del Regno Unito. L'implementazione 3DS2 di Cardflo è a conoscenza delle esenzioni (TRA, basso valore, MIT) quindi l'SCA si attiva solo quando richiesto.

Market context

The UK card market processes roughly £900 billion in card volume each year, with debit cards accounting for around 75% of in-person volume and credit roughly 25%. Contactless and Apple Pay / Google Pay now drive over 90% of card-present transactions in major cities, and ecommerce penetration sits at roughly 27% of total retail, one of the highest in Europe. Open Banking adoption has crossed 11 million active users and is the fastest-growing alternative to card-on-file for high-ticket and recurring use cases.

Scheme mix

Visa carries the majority of UK debit volume via Visa Debit. Mastercard is dominant on credit through co-brands and premium cards. Amex sits at roughly 4 to 6% of total volume but skews to higher-AOV travel and B2B. Diners and Discover are niche but worth enabling for corporate and inbound US travel.

Interchange & fees

Post-Brexit, UK domestic interchange remains capped at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit under the retained PSR rules. UK-issued cards used on EEA merchants now attract cross-border interchange at up to 1.15% (debit) and 1.50% (credit), which is why EEA selling merchants frequently route UK volume to a UK MID via Cardflo.

Common challenges

False declines on subscription renewals after PSD2, declining Amex acceptance for low-margin verticals, and chargeback exposure on remote-purchase models. UK issuers are aggressive on velocity rules, so first-time tokenised cards on subscription often see soft declines that require intelligent retry, not blanket retries that risk Visa VAMP and Mastercard ECP thresholds.

Recommended setup

• Primary UK Tier 1 acquirer with a redundant secondary for failover
• 3DS2 with TRA, low-value and MIT exemption logic enabled
• Network tokens (VTS, MDES) on all card-on-file flows
• Apple Pay, Google Pay and Pay by Bank as default APM trio
• Account Updater on subscription portfolios