Marketing
At first glance, AIB Merchant Services doesn’t hold back when it comes to marketing and advertising. Each page of its site look like, sleek professional brochures. The site is attractive and easy to navigate, and it promotes services and products in a thoughtful manner. It appears very straightforward.
Honesty
When we perused AIB Merchant Services’ site, we could not find anything dishonest or misleading. All of its language appeared clear and honest. It didn’t use any deceptive pricing structures or “starting at” rates. Also, we could not find a single complaint about hidden fees or undisclosed terms.
Sales
AIB Merchant Services gains sales through partners and by working with independent sales agents. For most businesses in this industry, this becomes a customer service nightmare. However, this does not appear to be a problem for AIB Merchant Services.
Availability
AIB Merchant Services can be reached by phone and email. The Merchant Service Centre is available Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Unfortunately, AIB Merchant Services doesn’t stay active on social media. For instance, its Facebook page doesn’t even update, and its Twitter account hasn’t been updated since 2015.
Staff Education
During our interactions, we found the staff to be very knowledgeable, confident, and enthusiastic. The representatives were quick to ask questions and to answer questions the best way they could. They seemed trained and skilled, especially about Global Choice, as well as other benefits.
Support
After we emailed AIB Merchant Services, we received a response quickly. We found this very positive. However, the responses didn’t offer any real important information, but its response within a couple hours was very promising. Also, the email did encourage us to email our phone number back or to call its sales department directly. We opted to call ourselves, and fortunately, we did reach someone in sales. The agent was very professional, attentive, and engaging. However, he made it clear that we would need to move further in the process if we wanted to know exact details about contract lengths and terms.
Staff Interaction
The staff seemed very knowledgeable and approachable. We wished they were more forthcoming with information, but every person we talked to was professional and understanding. One agent even recognized our frustration about not being able to provide specific contract information. Though we didn’t get the answer we wanted, we felt like the team cared about customer service.
Pricing
Merchants that use AIB Merchant Services’ payment gateway, Authipay, it offers three pricing bundles known as small, medium, and corporate and cost as follows:
- The small business bundle costs £21.99 per month for up to 300 transactions with each additional transaction costing £0.20. MSC credit card transactions are charged at 3%, debit cards at £0.005 each, and commercial at 2.5%.
- The medium business bundle costs £50.00 per month for up to 1,000 transactions, with each additional transaction costing £0.12. MSC credit card transactions are at 2.5%, debit cards at £0.005, and commercial at 2.5%.
- Costs and transactions are variable with the corporate bundle.
Real time reporting, multi-currency settlement, seamless security, and shopping cart plugins are included with the bundles.
In addition to its own payment gateway, AIB Merchant Services has approved the use of these other gateways:
- Realex Payments
- Sagepay
- Datacash
- TNSPay
- Creditcall
- Paypoint.net
- Optimal Payments
- Verifone
- Cybersource
- Servebase
- Worldnet TPS
- Cardstream
- PayVector
- CityPay
Unfortunately, AIB Merchant Services doesn’t list any additional pricing.
Hardware Costs
AIB rents many types of equipment that allow merchants to take face-to-face, mobile, and contactless transactions. There is a minimum 36-month contract with any equipment lease. Also, whether you buy or lease any of the equipment, you still also need to pay for software services to use the equipment. Software services, which include Clover Software as a Service, its help desk, and software upgrades and updates costs €59.99 per month per device. Each additional devices costs €24.99 per month.
These are the rental and purchase rates:
- A Clover station, which includes a station with touchscreen and printer, cash drawer, EMV Chip and PIN card reader, can rented for €40.00 per month or it can be purchased for €1,299.99
- A Clover Mini, which has an integrated card reader, terminal printer, and scanner, can be leased for €32.50 per month or purchased for €495.00
- A Clover mobile, which includes an integrated card reader, Wi-Fi plus 3G SIM slot, an integrated scanner, and holster, can be leased for €44.00 per month or purchased for €630.00
Optional hardware accessory charges:
- An Ethernet kitchen printer can be leased for €14.25 per month or purchased for €297.99
- A handheld bar code scanner can be leased for €4.49 per month or purchased for €88.85
- A Clover mobile thermal printer, which includes a belt clip, can be leased for €10.00 per month or purchased for €155.00
- A Clover mobile docking station can be leased for €8.00 per month or purchased for €99.99
Additionally, Clover also offers apps. Additional charges may apply for apps downloaded from the App Market.
Early Termination Fees
Due to its relationship with First Data, it is very likely that contract terms are variable, and that merchants must buy out agreements if they are cancelled before they expire.
Complaints
We searched and searched and were unable to find any real complaints about AIB Merchant Services. This could be because AIB Merchant Services is doing everything perfectly. However, we are more inclined to think that this is because AIB works under so many business names, and it isn’t getting all of the complaints it likely deserves. It is important to note that powerhouse, First Data, which AIB partners with, has 1,017 complaints with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Many of the complaints were related to account closures and misleading sales information and hidden fees. Also, it is important to note that First Data is not an accredited by the BBB. To be accredited, it means the BBB has determined that the business meets its accreditation standards, which means a business is committed to making good faith efforts to resolve consumer complaints.
Though this may not be the case, it is definitely something to keep in mind.
