Tyl by NatWest Review

Tyl by NatWest is the card-acceptance service of National Westminster Bank plc, sold to UK small businesses since 2019. 'Tyl by NatWest' is a trading name of the bank itself, so NatWest is the acquirer and holds the merchant agreement. As of October 2026, businesses taking up to £50,000 a year in card payments pay 1.39% + 5p on UK and European personal cards and 1.99% + 5p on every other card, including business and international cards. Businesses above £50,000 get a custom quote built on five rate bands. Card machines rent for £13.99 to £19.99 a month plus VAT on a 12-month contract. Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android has no rental fee, and the online payments package costs £14.95 a month plus VAT on a one-month rolling plan. Money is settled the next business day into any UK bank account, and you do not need to bank with NatWest. The weak points are what Tyl does not publish: Amex rates, the chargeback handling fee, the PCI SafePay fee and the early termination fee all sit in quotes or in terms that are visible only after you sign up. Trustpilot reviewers rate Tyl highly overall, but a steady minority complain about support, held funds and contracts that renewed automatically.

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

What Tyl by NatWest is

Tyl is the card-acceptance business of National Westminster Bank plc, the main UK bank in NatWest Group. It sells card machines, phone payments, payment links and online checkout to UK small and medium-sized businesses. Tyl's own schedule of interchange and scheme fees says 'Tyl by NatWest' is a trading name of National Westminster Bank plc, which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA (Financial Services Register number 121878). Tyl is also offered to Ulster Bank customers in Northern Ireland at the same published rates.

Tyl's timeline says first discussions about a NatWest card payment product took place in early 2017. A pilot launched with its first customers in December 2018, and Tyl went public in England and Wales in June 2019 (NatWest announced the launch in May 2019, when trade press reported it was live for a small number of customers), reaching 1,000 merchants by December 2019 and launching in Scotland and Northern Ireland in June 2020. This is NatWest's second time in card acquiring. Its parent, then the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, was required by the European Commission to sell its payments business, RBS WorldPay, as a condition of the state aid it received during the financial crisis. Advent International and Bain Capital bought 80% of it in 2010, with RBS keeping 20% at first. A May 2019 launch article written by Pollinate International, which designed Tyl with NatWest, said Tyl was developed with First Data as its payments processor. We found no other source for this and could not confirm which processor runs Tyl today. In May 2026 NatWest announced a partnership with the technology firm Endava to modernise Tyl's payments platform and speed up new product launches for small businesses. NatWest Group does not publish a Tyl merchant count in its 2025 annual results, so we give none.

Why we list Tyl as an acquiring platform

Tyl is not a reseller or a payment facilitator. The merchant agreement is with National Westminster Bank plc, Tyl's chargeback guide describes Tyl as 'the merchant acquiring bank', and settlement flows from the card networks to NatWest and on to your account. The bank also owns the pricing, underwriting, settlement and support. Processing is outsourced, as at most acquirers, but the bank holds the contract, which is what decides the type.

What it costs

Tyl splits its pricing by annual card turnover. For a business taking up to £50,000 a year, as of October 2026:

• UK and European personal debit and credit cards: 1.39% + 5p per transaction.
• All other cards, including business cards and international personal cards: 1.99% + 5p per transaction.
• American Express: quoted separately, and varies by industry.
• No extra charge for card-not-present (phone) payments, international cards or refunds, and no minimum monthly charge.
• Card machine rental: PAX A80 £13.99, PAX A50 £14.99 and PAX A920 Pro £19.99 a month, all plus VAT, on a 12-month contract.
• NatWest Tap to Pay: no monthly hire or PCI fee, transaction fees only.
• Online payments package (hosted checkout, API, plug-ins, virtual terminal): £14.95 a month plus VAT on a one-month rolling plan. Pay by Link alone has no monthly fee.

Above £50,000 a year Tyl gives a custom quote built from five transaction-rate bands for Visa, Mastercard and Discover, plus authorisation fees, card machine rental, the online gateway and a PCI fee if it applies. Those rates are not published. Tyl says it uses five price categories where 'some of our competitors use up to 170'. As a rough guide, a business taking £30,000 a year on UK personal cards in £25 sales would pay about £417 in percentage fees and £60 in authorisation fees, about £477 in total or 1.6%. Renting a PAX A80 adds £167.88 a year before VAT. If a third of that turnover came on business or non-European cards, transaction fees would rise to about £537.

Several costs are not on Tyl's public pages. The invoice guide says an unsuccessful chargeback is taken from your settlement and 'your invoice may show an additional fee' for handling it, without saying how much. A SafePay fee for PCI compliance validation, run with Viking Cloud, applies only if Tyl decides you are 'subject to additional requirements', and its amount is also unpublished. One-off charges can include early termination fees and fees for lost or damaged terminals. Tyl's merchant operating instructions say full fee details are in your Merchant Services Agreement and pricing schedules, which customers read in the portal. Ask for all of them in writing before you sign.

How it works and what you get

Tyl rents three PAX card machines: the A920 Pro portable smart terminal, the A80 countertop machine and the pocket-sized A50 with Wi-Fi, 4G and Bluetooth. They take chip and PIN, contactless up to £100, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and Tyl says payments are encrypted end to end by default. NatWest Tap to Pay turns an iPhone XS or later, or an Android 10+ phone with NFC, into a contactless terminal. For remote sales, the online payments package bundles a hosted checkout page with 3D Secure, an API, free shopping-cart plug-ins from its partner Autify, payment links and QR codes, and a virtual terminal for phone orders. Pay by Link can also be used from NatWest's business banking app and from FreeAgent invoices. Sales, settlements and invoices appear in the Tyl customer portal at no extra cost.

Settlement and payouts

Tyl pays each day's card takings by the end of the next business day into any UK bank account. Delays can happen when a customer disputes a payment or asks for a refund, or when Tyl wants to review a transaction. You choose net settlement, where transaction charges come out of each day's payout, or gross settlement, where you receive everything and pay the month's charges by Direct Debit around the 14th. Invoices go up on the portal on the 3rd of each month, and monthly charges such as rental are billed a month in advance. If your account falls into arrears, Tyl can put it on 'an active hold' and use your takings to clear the balance before settling to you again. Tyl's site lists no same-day or instant payout option.

Contracts and cancellation

Card machines come on a 12-month contract. Tap to Pay, Pay by Link and the online payments package are one-month rolling plans. To leave at the end of a card machine contract, Tyl's help centre says you need to give 30 days' notice by phone. It also says "There may be a termination fee" if you leave early and that your minimum term is in your terms and conditions in the portal. That sits uneasily with the small-business pricing page, which lists 'Cancelling your contract' among the things Tyl does not charge for. We could not read the merchant terms, because Tyl publishes them only to signed-up customers, so we cannot say whether contracts renew automatically or how a termination fee is calculated. Several Trustpilot reviewers say their contracts renewed each year without warning, and one reported an £80 early termination charge. Treat those as individual reports, not Tyl's stated policy, but check the renewal clause before you sign.

Eligibility

Your business must be based and trading in the UK, and you must be over 18. You do not need a NatWest account: Tyl pays into and collects from any UK bank account, although NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank business customers have a shorter application. Sole traders without a company registration number are asked for six months of bank statements, a recent utility bill in the trading name, insurance and, where relevant, VAT and trade body documents. Businesses with long lead times between payment and delivery, such as furniture shops and hotels, may be asked for previous processing statements and financial records. Tyl publishes no list of prohibited or high-risk business types, and nothing on its site suggests it seeks out high-risk merchants.

Reputation and complaints

As of 6 October 2026, Tyl has a TrustScore of 4.3 out of 5 from 2,118 reviews on Trustpilot. The distribution is polarised: 91% of reviews are five-star and 7% are one-star. Tyl has claimed its profile, pays for a Trustpilot subscription and replies to all negative reviews. Many five-star reviews praise named sales and onboarding staff for a quick set-up. One-star reviews from 2026 describe terminals that would not process payments, transactions reversed or funds held without a clear explanation, slow or unhelpful complaint handling, rejected applications, and contracts that renewed automatically. Our searches found no lawsuit or regulatory enforcement action concerning the Tyl card-acquiring business. For context on the parent entity only: National Westminster Bank plc, the bank of which Tyl is a trading name, was fined £264.8 million in December 2021 in a criminal prosecution brought by the Financial Conduct Authority, over anti-money-laundering failures involving a commercial banking customer between 2012 and 2016. That case concerned the bank's commercial banking, not Tyl, which launched in 2019. Complaints Tyl cannot resolve can be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Who should use Tyl

Tyl suits a UK small business that mostly takes UK consumer cards, wants to know its rate before talking to sales, and values next-business-day settlement and a bank as its acquirer. The 1.39% + 5p personal-card rate is competitive for businesses with average sales above a few pounds; on very small sales the 5p fee adds up. A business with many business-card or overseas customers should model the 1.99% rate, and a business over £50,000 a year should compare Tyl's custom quote line by line with others. Anyone who wants to read the full contract first, or who may need to leave within a year, should ask Tyl for the terms, the termination fee and the renewal clause in writing, or start with Tap to Pay or the online package, which roll monthly.