Teya Review

Teya is a London-headquartered payments and business-banking company founded in 2019 as SaltPay by Ali Mazanderani and Eduardo Pontes, renamed in April 2023, and backed by investors including Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and Michael Spencer — total funding is reported at about $845 million by data providers and $1.1 billion by The Business of Payments. It grew by acquisition — Iceland's Borgun in 2020, the UK's RMS Group in 2022 and the Czech ePOS company Storyous among them — and now sells to small businesses in nine European markets, the UK, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain, with Spain and Italy launched commercially in February 2026. In the UK the offer is a Teya Pro or Teya Lite card machine from £14.99 a month with a lifetime warranty, Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, online payments, and a free e-money Business Account that card takings settle into next working day as standard, every day including weekends and bank holidays as an option, or in seconds with Instant Settlements. Rates are quoted rather than published — the pricing page says there is no standard price list, the card-machine page says fees start at 1.59% — and using an outside bank account instead of Teya's adds 0.10% to every transaction. Teya Solutions Ltd is an electronic money institution authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (reference 978181), so the account is safeguarded rather than FSCS-protected. Its UK Trustpilot profile is 4.4 from about 1,500 reviews, 82% five-star and 15% one-star, and the one-star reviews are about held funds and unreturned calls.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Teya’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What it is

Teya was founded in London in 2019 as SaltPay by Ali Mazanderani, a fintech investor who chairs the company, and the Brazilian payments entrepreneur Eduardo Pontes, on the premise that Europe's small businesses were badly served by bank-owned acquirers and could be won by a company that owned the whole stack. It bought its way there: a 96% stake in Borgun, the Icelandic acquirer, in July 2020; Storyous, a Czech restaurant point-of-sale company; the UK terminal provider RMS Group in 2022 for a reported $267 million; and a string of smaller European payments businesses — The Business of Payments counted 24 transactions by early 2023 — alongside a stake in the card-issuing processor Paymentology. The group raised more than $500 million in 2021 from Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and Michael Spencer among others; data providers put total funding at about $845 million, while The Business of Payments reported $1.1 billion, and the company does not publish a figure. In April 2023 it renamed itself Teya, a name it says means joy, to reflect a product that had grown into banking and software.

It now operates in nine European markets — the United Kingdom, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain — after commercial launches in Spain and Italy in February 2026 that followed pilots begun the previous July, and says it serves more than 75,000 customers. The UK company, Teya Services Ltd, reported turnover of £19 million for 2024, roughly double the prior year, against a pre-tax loss of £64 million, down from £110 million; the company declined to give group figures. In the UK, payment services and the Business Account are provided by Teya Solutions Ltd, an electronic money institution authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under reference 978181, from a registered office at 41 Lothbury in the City of London.

What it costs

Here the review has to be about what Teya does not say. Its pricing page states that it looks at your volume, sector and average transaction and quotes a rate to fit, that there is no standard price list, and that the way to get a number is to talk to sales and share a recent statement. The card-machine page adds the only two public figures: machines from £14.99 a month and transaction fees starting at 1.59%. What every quote includes is next-day settlement, the Business Account at no charge, 0.5% cashback on the Teya card, a lifetime warranty on the terminal and 24/7 UK-based support; what it excludes is a rate you can compare from your desk. One published surcharge deserves attention: a merchant who declines the Business Account and settles to an outside bank pays an additional 0.10% on every transaction. There are no setup fees and no long-term contract.

That is the model the UK's traditional ISOs ran for twenty years, and it cuts both ways. A café with a Dojo or Barclaycard statement in hand will likely get a rate below its current one, because undercutting an existing quote is what the sales process is built for. A new business with no statement, or a merchant who simply wants to compare, is at a disadvantage against SumUp, Zettle, Square and Zeller, which print a single rate. It is the largest reason Teya's transparency score is low while its product scores are not.

Settlement, holds and the account

Settlement is the product's strongest feature. Teya's payment terms commit it to remitting each business day's card transactions on the following business day; its card-machine page offers two faster settings, an Everyday option that pays out daily including weekends and bank holidays and Instant Settlements that arrive in seconds. Only the Teya account gets the instant option, which, with the 0.10% loading for settling elsewhere, is a clear steer to bank with Teya. The account itself is free and does more than most: a debit card with up to 0.5% cashback, savings pots, expense management, bill automation, and syncing to Xero, QuickBooks and Sage, plus Cash Advance repaid from card sales and a Flexi Loan. It is e-money, not a deposit — Teya's own FAQ says it is not a bank, and the FSCS does not apply — so funds are safeguarded rather than guaranteed.

The same terms give Teya broad discretion. It may defer or withhold payouts for a suspicious transaction, an unanswered information request, a breach of the network rules, chargeback exposure or a change in your financial condition; it may demand a reserve and takes a lien over it; it may set off anything owed to any Teya company against your payouts or charge a linked payment method; it may terminate immediately for a long list of risk reasons or end a single payment method without notice; and it may change fees on whatever notice it considers reasonable unless the law sets a minimum, with your remedy being to leave free of charge before the change bites. Hardware must go back within five days of termination or Teya can bill its full cost. None of this is unusual for an acquirer, and Teya is at least explicit about it; it is the context for the one-star reviews.

Reputation

Teya's UK Trustpilot profile shows 4.4 out of 5 from about 1,500 reviews, 82% five-star and 15% one-star, with the company replying to 99% of negative reviews within a week. The five-star reviews praise a fast terminal, a better rate than the merchant had before, and named onboarding staff. The one-star reviews are about held money — a transaction declined with the funds retained, a promised call-back that did not come, a weekend outage — and one reviewer reports a complaint upheld with compensation after funds were held for five months. That is the pattern every fintech acquirer shows; Teya's version is neither better nor worse than its peers', and its response rate is better than most. We found no regulatory enforcement action or named litigation against the UK entities.

Gaps

• No published transaction rates; the real price comes after a sales call.
• A 0.10% surcharge for settling to your own bank rather than the Teya account.
• Nine European countries; nothing in North America, and the Spanish and Italian operations are months old.
• E-commerce is hosted checkout, embedded components, pay-by-link and plugins — adequate for a shop with a website, thin for an online-first business.
• The UK company is loss-making at scale, which is normal for a venture-backed challenger and worth knowing about a company you bank with.

The verdict

B. Teya has built something the European small-business market did not have — a licensed, well-funded payments company that settles next day, every day if you ask, and in seconds if you bank with it, and wraps a genuinely useful account, card and funding products around the terminal — and most of its customers are pleased with it. For a hospitality or retail business with a statement to negotiate from, it is a credible alternative to the bank-owned acquirers and the challengers alike.

It is not higher because the pricing is a negotiation rather than a number, because the account it steers you into is e-money rather than a deposit, and because the terms and the one-star reviews together describe an acquirer that will hold your money when its risk systems say so and is not always quick to explain why. Get the quote in writing, decide whether you want Teya as your bank as well as your acquirer, and it is a fair deal.