UK Payment Processing · Founded 2026

The honest payment processor for independent UK retail

We charge the minimum viable rate that keeps us sustainable — not the maximum your contract allows. IC++ pricing. No lock-in. Built by a family business, for family businesses.

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0.15–0.25%
Target blended rate
£7.5M
Returned to merchants at 1,000 live
100+
Pre-committed community businesses
Next-day
Payouts, 7 days/week incl. bank holidays
The Problem

The UK payments industry is built to confuse

Independent UK retailers pay between 0.5% and 2.0% per transaction — fees that have barely moved in a decade — while being locked into long contracts and left to figure it all out alone.

🌫

No transparency

Merchants receive opaque blended rates with no breakdown. Interchange, scheme fees, and processor margin are bundled into one number — designed to obscure, not inform.

🔒

Lock-in contracts

12–24 month minimum terms with expensive exit fees. 73% of small UK retailers have never switched provider despite being eligible for a better deal.

📦

Zero training

Terminals arrive with no onboarding or education. Merchants don't know what interchange is, what their rights are, or that switching is even possible.

👻

Abandoned post-sale

No account manager who knows their business. No proactive advice. No help when chargebacks spike or a terminal fails on a busy Friday evening.

£18k/yr
Average overpayment vs best available rate for a supermarket processing £500k/month
73%
Of small UK retailers have never switched provider despite being eligible for better rates
0 of 8
Top UK payment providers offer proactive merchant education or training as standard
Our Solution

IC++ pricing — the most transparent model in payments

Every transaction has three cost layers. Most processors bundle them into one number and hide the margin. We show you all three, separately, on every statement.

How £100 is processed
Customer pays
£100.00
Interchange — Visa/MC cap (UK consumer debit)
−£0.20
Scheme fee — Visa/Mastercard network
−£0.15
CorePayment markup
−£0.10
Merchant receives
£99.55
With a typical 1.5% blended rate: That same £100 costs the merchant £1.50 — not £0.45. On £50,000/month that's £6,300 per year returned to your business.

Savings calculator

£50,000/month
1.50%
Your current annual fees—
CorePayment annual fees—
Annual saving with CorePayment —
🛡

AI Fraud Engine — live from Year 1

Built entirely in-house. Real-time ML scoring on every transaction under 10ms. Behavioural analytics, adaptive rules, and chargeback prediction — before disputes are raised.

🏗

Developer-built infrastructure

No outsourced gateway. No third-party processor markup. PCI DSS Level 1 compliant from launch. Lower cost base means lower fees — the savings pass directly to merchants.

📋

Merchant education, not just onboarding

Before going live, every merchant understands exactly what they're paying and why. How to read a statement. How chargebacks work. What their rights are under FCA regulations.

🔄

Rolling monthly contracts

Cancel anytime — no exit fees, no lock-in. We earn your business every month. Next-day payouts 7 days/week including weekends and UK bank holidays.

📱

PAX terminal hardware

Android-based PAX A920 Pro devices running a custom CorePayment app. PCI PTS certified. WiFi primary, 4G LTE failover, 50-transaction offline queue. The same hardware DNA Payments and Dojo use.

📞

UK-based support, multiple languages

We answer the phone. Phone and chat support in English and other languages for our UK community merchants. Not an overseas call centre.

Pricing

One model. Three tiers. No hidden fees.

As your business grows, we automatically move you to lower rates. No need to ask. No negotiation. We're on your side.

Standard
0.10% + 5p
All merchants — from day one
  • Full IC++ pricing breakdown
  • Itemised monthly statements
  • Next-day payouts 7 days/week
  • Rolling monthly contract
  • UK phone & chat support
  • No setup fee, no exit fee
Most common
Growth
0.08% + 5p
>£100k/month GMV
  • Everything in Standard
  • Dedicated account contact
  • Quarterly business review
  • Auto-upgrade when you qualify
  • Priority support queue
  • Volume rebate programme
Supermarket
0.05% + 5p
>£500k/month GMV
  • Everything in Growth
  • Same-day settlement option
  • Multi-location management
  • Custom reporting & API access
  • Dedicated integration support
  • SLA-backed uptime guarantee

No setup fee. No monthly fee. No exit fee. We are not building to maximise our margin. We are building to maximise what stays with the merchant.

Competitive Landscape

The gap in the UK market

No competitor combines IC++ pricing + AI fraud from Year 1 + community-based merchant pipeline at the SME price point.

Provider CorePayment DNA Payments Dojo Worldpay Stripe Square
Typical rate 0.15–0.25% 1.0–2.0% 1.0–1.6% 0.75–1.8% 1.5% + 20p 1.75%
Pricing model Full IC++ None — quote only IC++ (Flex only) Custom quotes Flat rate Flat rate
Contract Rolling monthly Up to 4 years 12 months 18 months None None
AI fraud engine ✓ Year 1 (in-house) Partial Basic Basic ✓ Radar ML Basic
Merchant education ✓ Full programme None None None Docs only Docs only
Exit fee None Yes Yes Yes None None
The DNA Payments warning: DNA raised £100M, has 65,000 merchants, yet still posts £31M annual operating losses. Why? Acquisition-led growth drives high integration costs, legacy tech debt, and collapsing gross margins. CorePayment builds from scratch — lower fixed costs, no acquisition overhead, AI-native from day one.
Technology

A payments stack built the right way, from day one

Every component built in-house by our CTO. PCI DSS Level 1 from launch. No outsourced gateway. No third-party processor markup.

1
PAX Terminal — merchant-facing
Android-based, PCI PTS certified, custom CorePayment app via PAXSTORE SDK
PAX A920 Pro devices running our custom Android application. WiFi primary connection with automatic 4G LTE IoT SIM failover and a 50-transaction offline queue as last resort. TLS 1.3 + certificate pinning + P2PE means card data is encrypted before it leaves the hardware. Tap-to-Pay on iPhone added as a zero-hardware option in Year 2.
Android 14PCI PTS 6.xNFC/EMV/Magstripe4G LTE failoverP2PE encrypted
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2
Payment Gateway — AWS eu-west-2 (London)
FastAPI, EKS, mTLS, tokenisation-first architecture. UK data residency.
REST API gateway running on AWS EKS in London for UK data residency and GDPR compliance. Every card number (PAN) is immediately tokenised via Basis Theory (Year 1) before any database write — raw card data never stored. ISO 8583 message processing for EMV chip, contactless NFC, and 3DS2 for card-not-present. BIN lookup via Redis cache (<5ms) to identify card type for IC++ rate application.
FastAPI / PythonAWS EKSISO 8583Basis Theory tokenisationRedis BIN cache
▾
3
AI Fraud Engine — 4 modules, live Year 1
Real-time ML scoring sub-10ms. Behavioural analytics. Chargeback prediction.
Module 1 — ML Scoring: XGBoost + neural network ensemble trained on IEEE-CIS fraud dataset. Every transaction scored 0–100 risk in under 10ms, inline with authorisation — zero UX impact on merchants or customers.

Module 2 — Behavioural Analytics: Merchant spending pattern baseline, velocity checks across card/IP/device, geolocation anomaly detection, time-of-day and transaction amount clustering.

Module 3 — Adaptive Rules Engine: Thresholds self-tune based on merchant feedback loop. False positive correction. Sector-specific rules calibrated for grocery and retail.

Module 4 — Chargeback Prediction: Pre-flags high-risk transactions before disputes are raised. 3DS2 exemption logic to reduce unnecessary authentication friction. SageMaker retrains weekly.
XGBoostAWS SageMaker<10ms scoring3DS2 integrationIEEE-CIS trained
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4
Kafka Event Pipeline — exactly-once settlement
payment-requests → authorisation → fraud-scores → settlement-events → payouts
Amazon MSK (managed Kafka) handles the full message chain: payment-requests → authorisation-responses → fraud-scores → settlement-events → merchant-notifications. Exactly-once delivery guarantees a payment can never be processed twice even if a service crashes mid-transaction. Aurora PostgreSQL stores all transactions with every IC++ fee component as separate columns — the foundation for transparent merchant statements.
Amazon MSKExactly-once deliveryAurora PostgreSQLKafka Streams
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5
AWS CloudHSM — cryptographic backbone
FIPS 140-2 Level 3. EMV ARQC verification. PIN encryption. Keys never leave hardware.
A Hardware Security Module is mandatory for PCI DSS Level 1. AWS CloudHSM is FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified — the same standard Visa and Mastercard use. All cryptographic operations (EMV chip cryptogram verification, PIN block encryption, MAC signing of ISO 8583 messages) happen inside the HSM. Keys never exist in application memory. ~£1,100/month — far cheaper than physical HSMs at £20k–80k upfront.
FIPS 140-2 Level 3EMV ARQC verificationISO 9564 PIN encryptionmTLS key management
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6
Visa & Mastercard — scheme connectivity
Year 1: via sponsor bank (ISO 8583). Year 2+: direct VisaNet Connect + Mastercard MIP.
Year 1 connects via a sponsor bank gateway using ISO 8583 over mTLS. This is faster to launch and is how most new processors start. Year 2+ moves to direct scheme connections once we hold our own Visa/Mastercard scheme membership — VisaNet Connect REST API (ISO 20022 JSON) and Mastercard MIP (ISO 8583 over TCP). Authentication: 4-layer stack — IP whitelisting → mTLS client certificates → MAC signing (Field 64, HSM-computed) → STAN replay prevention. 3DS2 server (EMVCo certified v2.2.0+) for SCA compliance on card-not-present.
ISO 8583ISO 200223DS2 EMVCo v2.2+mTLS + OAuth2SCA compliant
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🐍
FastAPI / Python
Backend services
🗄
Aurora PostgreSQL
Transaction ledger
⚡
Redis / ElastiCache
BIN cache & blacklists
🌊
Amazon MSK / Kafka
Event streaming
☁
AWS EKS
Container orchestration
🔐
AWS CloudHSM
Key management
🏗
Terraform / IaC
Infrastructure as code
⚛
React
Merchant dashboard
Go-to-Market

Built for long-term trust, not short-term growth

We are not building CorePayment to sell it in five years. We are building it to still be here in twenty — as the trusted payment infrastructure for independent UK community retail.

1
Phase 1 · Months 1–12 · Now
Community Launch
Convert our pre-committed network of 100+ businesses to live merchant accounts post-FCA licence. Effective customer acquisition cost: £0. Every penny goes toward covering compliance and infrastructure — accelerating our path to sustainability without a sales spend.
Target: 30 live merchants
GMV: £18M run-rate
CAC: ~£0 (pre-committed)
2
Phase 2 · Year 2
Referral Growth
Merchant referral programme (£200 credit per successful referral). Referrals from existing community and independent supermarket networks. The first payment company to genuinely earn the trust of UK community retail will not need a sales team — the community does it for them.
Target: 120 merchants
GMV: £72M
Returns to merchants: £900k/yr
3
Phase 3 · Year 3
Vertical Expansion
Independent retailers, ethnic supermarkets, convenience store chains. Trade association partnerships and direct sales (2 FTE). Enterprise account management and white-label gateway offering.
Target: 300 merchants
GMV: £180M
Returns to merchants: £2.25M/yr
4
Phase 4 · Years 4–5
Scale — 1,000 Merchants
Multi-location retail groups, franchise networks. Direct scheme membership with Visa and Mastercard. The permanent, trusted payment infrastructure for independent UK community retail.
Target: 1,000 merchants
GMV: £600M
Returns to merchants: £7.5M/yr
Financial Forecast

Break-even at 600 merchants — Year 4

Conservative organic growth only. No acquisitions. Community-based CAC model means near-zero early acquisition costs accelerate the path to sustainability.

Year Merchants GMV Revenue Op Costs EBITDA
2025 (Setup)0——£180k−£180k
202630£18M£27k£420k−£393k
2027120£72M£144k£580k−£436k
2028300£180M£450k£720k−£270k
2029 ✓ Break-even600£360M£1.08M£900k+£180k
20301,000£600M£1.8M£1.1M+£700k

Assumptions: Average merchant GMV £50k/month · Net take rate 0.15% blended · Chargeback rate <0.1% (maintained by AI fraud engine) · Cost base includes FCA/PCI compliance, 4 FTE by Year 2, AWS cloud infrastructure · Organic and community-based growth only, no acquisitions.

Community Impact

This is the number we measure ourselves by

Not our valuation. Not our GMV. How much money we have returned to the independent UK merchants who trusted us.

£7.5M

Returned to independent UK retailers per year at 1,000 merchants — money that stays in communities, reduces pressure on margins, and doesn't get passed on to the customer at the till.

£6,300/yr
Saved by a typical merchant processing £50k/month, switching from 1.5% blended to CorePayment
£18,000/yr
Saved by a supermarket processing £500k/month — moving from 0.5% to CorePayment's 0.20%
100+
Pre-committed UK businesses in our community network — built through years of shared experience, not a sales campaign
Regulatory & Compliance

Fully compliant from launch

All regulatory work led by Sedah Akbas (ACCA Qualified, CFO). We apply for FCA authorisation as early as possible — average decision time is 12 months.

In progress

FCA Payment Institution Authorisation

Full PI authorisation enabling CorePayment to issue payment instruments and execute payment transactions in the UK. Minimum capital requirement: €125,000 (~£107k). Deliverables: Regulatory Business Plan, Safeguarding Policy, financial projections, capital adequacy proof.

Target: Month 1–6 application · Avg FCA decision: 12 months
Planned

PCI DSS Level 1 Certification

The highest level of PCI DSS certification, required for processing over 6 million card transactions per year. Tokenisation-first architecture minimises audit scope — PANs are never stored. AWS CloudHSM (FIPS 140-2 Level 3) provides the cryptographic foundation.

Gap analysis Month 2–3 · QSA audit Month 9–12 · Budget: £125k–£400k Year 1
Planned

AML / KYC Programme

HMRC Money Service Business (MSB) registration. Sedah Akbas appointed as MLRO. AML Policy & Procedures Manual. Full merchant KYC onboarding checks and transaction monitoring programme in production before go-live.

MSB registration Month 1 · KYC live Month 4–6 · Transaction monitoring Month 5–8
Planned

Visa & Mastercard Scheme Membership

Associate Member via sponsor bank route (Year 1). Applications to Mastercard Start Path and Visa Fintech Fast Track programmes (Month 6). Direct Principal membership with own scheme certificates targeted for Year 2–3 alongside FCA licence.

Sponsor bank route Year 1 · Direct membership Year 2–3 · SEIS/EIS Advance Assurance Month 1
Funding

Seed Round: £500,000

To achieve FCA Payment Institution authorisation, PCI DSS Level 1 certification, and our first 50 live merchants. SEIS/EIS Advance Assurance applied for Month 1 — 50% tax relief for SEIS investors, 30% for EIS.

£500,000
Seed ask. 100% equity-free options available via SEIS/EIS advance assurance.
FCA application & legal fees
£60,00012%
PCI DSS gap analysis & remediation
£80,00016%
HSM hardware & tokenisation vault
£50,00010%
QSA audit (Year 1)
£70,00014%
Infrastructure (AWS, tools, licences)
£40,0008%
Working capital & operations
£120,00024%
Founder salaries (12 months)
£80,00016%
Funding Timeline
Pre-Seed (Now)
SEIS angels · British Business Bank Startup Loan (up to £25k per founder)
Seed (Month 6–12)
£500k · VCs, EIS angels, Techstars Barclays Accelerator
Series A (Year 2–3)
£2–5M · Post FCA licence + live merchant traction
Accelerators Targeted
→ Barclays / Techstars Fintech Accelerator
→ Mastercard Start Path
→ Visa Fintech Fast Track
→ FCA Regulatory Sandbox
Unit Economics
LTV:CAC ratio3:1 ✓
Net contribution/merchant/month£25
CAC (community cohort)~£0
Payback period (standard)12 months
The Founders

Built by people who lived the problem

CorePayment was not born in a boardroom. It was born behind the counter of a family business.

Onur Akbas
Onur Akbas
Co-founder & CTO
Full-stack developer with 10+ years of experience across enterprise software, cloud infrastructure, and payments technology. Grew up working in the family business. Building the entire CorePayment technology stack from scratch — payment gateway, AI fraud engine, HSM integration, ISO 8583 scheme connectivity, merchant dashboard, and PAX terminal application. Responsible for all FCA tech requirements and PCI DSS architecture.
LinkedIn
Sedah Akbas
Sedah Akbas
Co-founder & CFO
ACCA Qualified finance professional with a background in accounting and financial management. Leading all financial and regulatory workstreams — FCA Payment Institution authorisation, PCI DSS certification, AML/KYC programme, sponsor bank relationships, and SEIS/EIS advance assurance. Appointed MLRO. Managing the seed raise and accelerator applications.
LinkedIn

Get Involved

Ready to pay less and keep more?

Whether you're an independent merchant, a potential investor, or a community network — we'd love to talk. Our first 100 merchants pay nothing to onboard.

CorePayment Ltd · London, UK · Founded 2026