Direct Acquirer of Visa and Mastercard

A direct payment acquirer is a financial institution that holds its own Visa and Mastercard principal membership, letting it process card payments directly rather than through a third-party sponsor bank. This means it handles authorisation, clearing, and settlement itself – resulting in faster onboarding, more control over risk decisions, and no reseller markup.

Being a Principal Member means PAYSTRAX is licensed directly by Visa and Mastercard to acquire card transactions, rather than operating under another bank’s licence. For merchants, that translates into tangible benefits: faster onboarding since approvals don’t have to pass through a sponsor bank, more transparent and predictable pricing with no reseller markup added on top, and direct control over risk and underwriting decisions – meaning fewer delays and more flexibility when your business needs are reviewed.

PAYSTRAX serves merchants across the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). PAYSTRAX is a Payment Institution authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, and a Payment Institution supervised by the Bank of Lithuania. This dual licensing, combined with our own Visa and Mastercard Principal Membership, allows us to support both online and in-store payment processing for merchants throughout the UK and EU.

At the moment we offer 17 settlement currencies: Australian Dollar, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Czech Koruna, Danish Krone, Euro, Hungarian Forint, Iceland Krona, Japanese Yen, New Zealand Dollar, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Romanian Leu, Singaporean Dollar, Swedish Krona, Swiss Franc, and US Dollar. Or you can choose to settle in stablecoin – USDC or EURC. Some settlement currency limitations may be applied to certain merchant category codes.