Mid Sussex District Council is a local government district within the historic county of Sussex. It has a population of over 150,000 and generated nearly £8 million of annual card turnover in 2022*, mainly from council tax payments.
Lloyds Bank Cardnet was invited to submit a bid through a benchmarking exercise conducted on the council’s behalf. With any local authority opportunity, the bidders are scored across several areas, including price, service, and ease of switching. David Chalk, the council’s Finance Systems Technical Officer, also saw no point in looking at a short-term solution, so it helped that part of our proposal came with a dedicated relationship manager, extensive experience across the sector, and a long-standing banking relationship with them already.
Annual cost savings
The nature in which we presented the costs to the council also gave David confidence in the commercial value of our proposition. Our pricing structure gave a transparent view of the market by showing fees from the card schemes e.g., Visa® and Mastercard®, as well as our own processing fees, which resulted in offering the council an annual cost saving through better rates.
They were able to use our PCI DSS portal to transfer over their existing compliance, which enabled them to remain compliant, safeguarding their cardholder data, without the need of further assessment. David also has access to our online reporting tool, which will help him oversee and manage every transaction.
Seamless switching process
One area the council was very impressed with, was the speed in which we processed the switch, and how quickly we responded to questions.