Issue - meetings

Banking Services Contract

Meeting: 03/11/2015 - Cabinet (Item 83)

To approve the delegation of the award of the corporate banking services contract and merchant acquiring services contract upon completion of the tender evaluation process to the Head of Finance and Governance following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance and Governance.

Decision:

RESOLVED

That the Head of Finance and Governance be authorised, following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance and Governance, to award the corporate banking services contract and merchant acquiring services contract upon completion of the tender evaluation process.

Minutes:

The Cabinet considered the report circulated with the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes).

Mrs Hardwick introduced the report, explaining that both the Council’s corporate banking services contract and its merchant acquiring services (or card payment service) contract were due to expire on 31 March 2016.An EU compliant procurement process was in hand, as explained in paragraphs 3.2 and 3.3 of the report.

Mrs Belenger (Accountancy Services Manager) added that the market had changed since the services were last tendered in 2008. It had become necessary to split the contract between corporate banking and merchant acquiring services. For the latter there was only one provider in the framework and so she was checking value for money and taking account of possible volume changes. The merchant acquiring services did not cover payments made on-line and, as these increased, volumes of other card transactions could be expected to decrease.

Mrs Keegan enquired why there was only one supplier of merchant acquiring services on the ESPO Banking Services Framework, as she believed there were at least three major companies in that business. Mrs Belenger did not know the answer, but offered to make further enquiries.

RESOLVED