Review · Fact-checked October 4, 2026
Lloyds Bank Cardnet is the card-acquiring business of Lloyds Bank plc, run as a joint venture with Fiserv, and it serves UK businesses only. It is not available to US merchants, and every figure in this review is in pounds sterling (GBP). The merchant agreement is with Lloyds Bank plc trading as Cardnet. Cardnet Merchant Services Limited, the joint-venture company, is controlled by Lloyds, and its 2025 accounts say Fiserv's FDR Limited, LLC holds about 49% of its shares. The UK Payment Systems Regulator counts Cardnet among the five largest UK acquirers. The joint-venture company's 2025 accounts report about £57.5 billion of card payments across more than a billion transactions. Cardnet publishes no rate card. Each account is priced individually, and the pricing page gives only worked examples, such as 0.5% plus a 3p authorisation fee on a £100 in-person Visa debit payment. Card machines rent for £21 or £23 a month plus VAT, there is a £10 minimum monthly charge, and other fees, such as PCI DSS management, are set in each merchant's own schedule. Both versions of the merchant agreement that Lloyds publishes roll on with one month's notice, but leaving within six months triggers an early-termination fee, which the December 2021 version sets at £200. Lloyds also sells Lloyds Accept, a separate pay-as-you-go app for its own business-account customers with card turnover under £100,000, at a published 1.5% + 20p.

Tell them what you need. This goes to Lloyds Bank Cardnet only.
UK retailers, hospitality businesses and service firms with steady card turnover that want a bank-owned acquirer, especially Lloyds and Bank of Scotland business customers who want their card payments and bank account in one place, and businesses that want Clover point-of-sale hardware with UK phone support six days a week.
The take
B-Cardnet is a sound choice for an established UK business, especially one that banks with Lloyds or Bank of Scotland, that wants a big-bank acquirer with Clover terminals, an online gateway and next-day settlement, and is willing to negotiate a quote. Its merchant agreement is better than many: it rolls month to month with one month's notice, and the early-exit fee applies only in the first six months (£200 under the December 2021 terms). However, Cardnet publishes no rates, many charges are set only in each merchant's own schedule (PCI DSS management, chargebacks, Faster Settlement), and the agreement lets it change fees on two months' notice and hold settlement funds when it suspects fraud or unusual volumes. In 2021 the UK regulator found that, on average across the five largest acquirers (Cardnet among them), small and mid-size merchants got little or no benefit from the interchange fee cap; that finding was not specific to Cardnet. We grade it B-: solid infrastructure and fair exit terms, held back by opaque pricing.
Are a US or other non-UK business (Cardnet serves UK merchants only), want a published rate you can compare without asking for a quote, take only small occasional card volumes (Lloyds steers businesses under £100,000 a year toward Lloyds Accept), or want to be sure no fee or reserve can be added during the contract.
The headline take, the audiences it's right (and wrong) for, and the genuine differentiators behind the verdict.
Lloyds Bank Cardnet is the card-acquiring business of Lloyds Bank plc, run as a joint venture with Fiserv, and it serves UK businesses only. It is not available to US merchants, and every figure in this review is in pounds sterling (GBP). The merchant agreement is with Lloyds Bank plc trading as Cardnet. Cardnet Merchant Services Limited, the joint-venture company, is controlled by Lloyds, and its 2025 accounts say Fiserv's FDR Limited, LLC holds about 49% of its shares. The UK Payment Systems Regulator counts Cardnet among the five largest UK acquirers. The joint-venture company's 2025 accounts report about £57.5 billion of card payments across more than a billion transactions. Cardnet publishes no rate card. Each account is priced individually, and the pricing page gives only worked examples, such as 0.5% plus a 3p authorisation fee on a £100 in-person Visa debit payment. Card machines rent for £21 or £23 a month plus VAT, there is a £10 minimum monthly charge, and other fees, such as PCI DSS management, are set in each merchant's own schedule. Both versions of the merchant agreement that Lloyds publishes roll on with one month's notice, but leaving within six months triggers an early-termination fee, which the December 2021 version sets at £200. Lloyds also sells Lloyds Accept, a separate pay-as-you-go app for its own business-account customers with card turnover under £100,000, at a published 1.5% + 20p.
Cardnet is one of only two UK card acquirers that a UK-headquartered bank wholly or partly owns. The other is Barclaycard, according to the Payment Systems Regulator's 2021 market review. Lloyds controls the joint venture and contracts with merchants, sells it through its business-banking network, and lets most UK businesses apply whether or not they bank with Lloyds. Fiserv owns about 49%, supplies Clover hardware and, according to industry reporting, handles processing. That puts a high-street bank's balance sheet behind the merchant agreement and Fiserv's point-of-sale range on the counter.
Real-world cost at three volumes, plus the rates, fees, payouts, and contract terms that drive them.
Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Lloyds Bank Cardnet’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.
Lloyds Bank Cardnet is the card-acquiring service of Lloyds Bank plc, one of the UK's largest high-street banks. It lets businesses in the UK accept Visa, Mastercard and other cards in person, online and over the phone. It serves UK businesses only. Prices are in pounds sterling plus UK VAT, and a US merchant cannot use it. We review it because readers comparing bank-owned acquirers, or running a UK arm of a US business, ask about it.
The business is run through Cardnet Merchant Services Limited, a London-registered company. According to Companies House, it took that name in October 1997, having been Lloyds Fundsflow Limited. Its 2025 accounts describe it as a joint venture between Lloyds Bank plc, Lloyds Bank Subsidiaries Limited and FDR Limited, LLC, part of the US payments group Fiserv. The company is controlled by Lloyds Bank plc, and FDR holds about 49% of its shares. First Data, now part of Fiserv, listed Cardnet Merchant Services Ltd as a not-wholly-owned subsidiary in a US securities filing dated March 2002. We have not confirmed exactly when First Data took its stake, so we give no founding year. In October 2026, Lloyds' own Cardnet pages say it is trusted by more than 35,000 businesses making 2.86 million transactions a day. The 2025 accounts report about £57.5 billion of card payments over the year: £41.0 billion on debit cards and £16.5 billion on credit cards, across more than a billion transactions. Profit before tax was £23.7 million.
The Cardnet Merchant Agreement names the other party as Lloyds Bank plc trading as Cardnet. Your contract is directly with the bank that does the acquiring, not with a reseller or an ISO. The UK Payment Systems Regulator's 2021 market review counts Lloyds Bank Cardnet among the five largest UK acquirers, alongside Barclaycard, Elavon, Global Payments and Worldpay, and notes that only Barclaycard and Cardnet are wholly or partly owned by UK-headquartered banks. That puts it in our platform and acquirer category, where we also list the bank-owned Barclaycard Payments. Our bank payments category covers account-to-account and open-banking rails, not card acquiring. Lloyds handles sales through its business-banking network. Fiserv, the 49% shareholder, supplies Clover terminals and, according to the industry newsletter Business of Payments, the processing.
Cardnet publishes no rate card. Rates are quoted per account, through a sales call or Lloyds' online quote tool. Online quote tools like Lloyds' are one of the measures the Payment Systems Regulator required of acquirers after its 2021 review. As of October 2026, Lloyds' pricing page lists the charge types and gives two worked examples:
These examples are illustrations, not rates you are guaranteed. Your quote will depend on your turnover, card mix and sector. The December 2021 merchant agreement also lists one-off fees, which the October 2025 version does not repeat: £15 for a rejected direct debit, £50 to add an outlet, £50 each to add e-commerce or card-not-present facilities, £50 for a change of name or legal entity, £150 for multi-currency facilities, and £75 an hour for account management prompted by unusual or unauthorised activity. There is also £30 for each chargeback once a month's chargebacks exceed 1% of your Visa and Mastercard sales. Both versions let Cardnet change fees on two months' written notice, and the October 2025 version allows immediate changes that follow interchange or scheme-fee changes.
For in-person payments Cardnet rents the Castles Saturn, a portable 4G card machine with a built-in printer, and Fiserv's Clover range: the Flex handheld, the Mini countertop and the Station Duo till, with more than 100 apps in the Clover App Market. Online, Lloyds Bank Online Payments offers a hosted payment page, where Cardnet handles PCI DSS and 3D Secure, an integrated API checkout, pay by link and QR codes, recurring and tokenised payments, multi-currency acceptance and real-time fraud screening at no extra charge. There is a virtual terminal for phone orders. Lloyds also offers a merchant cash advance and Dynamic Currency Conversion. Lloyds says you do not need to bank with it to apply for most Cardnet products.
Lloyds also sells Lloyds Accept, a pay-as-you-go app for its own business-account customers with under about £100,000 a year in card turnover. It is a separate product with its own terms. Lloyds' pricing page for Cardnet excludes it, and you cannot have both. As of October 2026 it charges 1.5% + 20p on UK personal debit and credit cards, 2% + 20p on business and premium cards such as American Express, and 3% + 20p on EU and international cards. There is no monthly fee or contract, a £20 chargeback fee and settlement in three business days. Payments are taken with Tap to Pay on a phone or an optional BBPOS WisePad 3 (£49 + VAT) or Stripe Reader S710 (£230 + VAT).
Lloyds publishes two versions of the Cardnet Merchant Agreement. One, dated as applying from October 2025, covers merchants who opened Cardnet with a Lloyds business account on or after 5 November 2025; the December 2021 version covers all other merchants. On exit terms they agree. Neither has a fixed term, and you can end the agreement at any time with one month's written notice. Ending it within six months of the start date costs an early-termination fee set in your Merchant Specific Conditions, which the December 2021 version sets at £200; the October 2025 version gives no amount. Cardnet can end it with two months' notice, or immediately for reasons including a serious breach, suspected fraud, unpaid fees, failure to validate PCI DSS, fraud levels above its threshold, or a business type the card schemes will not process. After it ends the agreement, Cardnet can tell the card schemes and credit reference agencies, and the reasons. Cardnet can also require security against future chargebacks at any time, including after the agreement ends, and Lloyds Bank can set off sums you owe against money it holds for you. Terminal rentals are separate: the Clover Station Duo is on an 18-month fixed contract, and Lloyds does not state a term for the other devices on their product pages.
Lloyds markets next-day settlement: its Clover page says payments typically arrive by 6pm on the next business day. Both versions of the merchant agreement set a slower default. Cardnet usually pays within five business days, and next-business-day Faster Settlement is an optional, paid service, available only for UK sterling transactions and up to £99,999 a day. Confirm which applies in your quote. Cardnet can withhold settlement if it suspects fraud, transactions outside your declared business or volumes much larger than expected, and keep it until it is satisfied the payments are legitimate and no longer open to chargeback.
Existing customers can call Cardnet's UK team on 01268 567 100 from 8am to 9pm, Monday to Saturday. New-business enquiries go to 0330 134 7976 from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Lloyds says calls are answered on average within 32 seconds, which is its own figure. The Castles Saturn comes with 24/7 technical support, and online reporting tools give round-the-clock access to transactions, chargebacks and statements.
As of 4 October 2026, the Lloyds Cardnet profile on Trustpilot has a TrustScore of 4.6 from 553 reviews, with 81% five-star and 9% one-star. The profile is claimed and Lloyds invites customers to review it, which tends to lift scores. It also says Lloyds replies to all negative reviews. Positive reviews praise friendly staff and smooth switching. Recent critical ones describe slow problem-solving, a complicated set-up and an account block that was not fully lifted.
The Payment Systems Regulator's card-acquiring market review, published in November 2021, found the market was not working well for small and medium-sized merchants, or for large merchants with up to £50 million in annual card turnover. It found that merchants with £15,000 to £50 million in annual turnover served by the five largest acquirers, a group that includes Cardnet, got, on average, little or no pass-through of the savings from the cap on interchange fees, based on 2014 to 2018 data from those acquirers rather than a Cardnet-specific finding, and that terminal contracts could discourage switching. The remedies apply across the industry: summary boxes, online quote tools, reminder messages and rules on terminal contracts. They are not an enforcement action against Cardnet. Our searches found no lawsuit or regulatory enforcement action naming Cardnet itself. The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Lloyds Bank over unrelated consumer businesses, such as mortgage arrears handling, which does not concern Cardnet.
In March 2024 PayPoint announced that Lloyds Bank Cardnet would become the main card-acquiring partner across its network of more than 60,000 small businesses and retailers. Rollout was planned for later that year, subject to regulatory approval, and PayPoint said Cardnet would receive significant investment in product development and data analytics. Cardnet's 2025 accounts report debit-card volumes up 17% and credit-card volumes up 20% on 2024, and £11.5 million spent on its strategic investment programme.
Cardnet suits an established UK business that wants a bank-owned acquirer, Clover point-of-sale hardware and UK support, and is willing to negotiate. A Lloyds or Bank of Scotland customer gains most, because the bank relationship can help in that negotiation. Get the full fee schedule, including your Merchant Specific Conditions, in writing before you sign, and check the PCI DSS, chargeback and settlement charges as well as the headline rate. A very small UK business may pay less on Lloyds Accept or another pay-as-you-go provider, and a business outside the UK cannot use Cardnet.
Card-present retail and point-of-sale transactions
Manually entered card-not-present transactions
Recurring monthly account fee
Annual PCI DSS compliance and security fee
Per-incident chargeback dispute fee
Fee for canceling before contract end
Regular deposit schedule to your bank account
Faster deposit option (may have additional fees)
Rolling; 1 month's notice
Required commitment period
Lloyds publishes two versions of the Cardnet Merchant Agreement: one applying from October 2025, for merchants who opened Cardnet with a Lloyds business account on or after 5 November 2025, and the December 2021 version for all other merchants. Both say the agreement runs until either side ends it, and you can end it at any time with one month's written notice by post or email. If you leave within six months of the start date, you pay the Early Termination Fee in your Merchant Specific Conditions; the December 2021 version sets it at £200, and the October 2025 version gives no amount. Cardnet can end the agreement with two months' notice, or immediately for reasons including a serious breach, suspected fraud or failing to validate PCI DSS, and can then report the termination to the card schemes and credit reference agencies. Your debts, chargeback liability and any security Cardnet asks for continue after the agreement ends. Card machines are rented under their own terms; the Clover Station Duo is an 18-month fixed contract.
How to terminate your account
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Pick a published plan, enter your volume and transaction profile, and we’ll compute the math the same way an underwriter would. Real costs vary with card mix, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.
Products, integrations, payment-type coverage, security posture, and how their support holds up in practice.
Card acquiring for face-to-face payments on rented terminals: the Castles Saturn portable card machine and Fiserv's Clover range (Clover Flex, Clover Mini and Clover Station Duo). Clover devices run apps for stock, staff, table service and loyalty from the Clover App Market. Accepts Visa, Mastercard and other schemes; American Express acceptance carries extra fees.
An e-commerce gateway with a hosted payment page that Cardnet manages for PCI DSS and 3D Secure, an integrated payment page built on Cardnet's APIs, and pay by link or QR code. Includes real-time fraud screening at no extra cost, recurring payments, tokenised one-click payments and multi-currency acceptance.
Phone and mail-order payments taken on a terminal or through a secure online virtual terminal, with interactive voice response and payment-link integrations.
A separate Lloyds pay-as-you-go product for Lloyds and Bank of Scotland business-account customers that do not already take payments with Lloyds. You take payments with Tap to Pay on iPhone or Android, payment links and QR codes, or an optional BBPOS WisePad 3 (£49 + VAT) or Stripe Reader S710 (£230 + VAT). Lloyds says it is most cost-effective below £100,000 a year in card turnover. It is priced and documented separately from Cardnet.
Lloyds offers Cardnet merchants a merchant cash advance repaid from card takings, and Dynamic Currency Conversion, which lets overseas cardholders pay in their own currency. Cardnet can also provide multi-currency facilities for a £150 fee per request under the December 2021 agreement (the October 2025 version says charges are set when the service is agreed).
No. Cardnet is a UK card acquirer for businesses trading in the UK. Its prices are in pounds sterling plus UK VAT, and settlement goes to a UK bank account. Next-business-day Faster Settlement, for example, is available only for transactions at UK outlets in sterling. A US business should look at US acquirers instead.
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