Request for Information - payment service provision and acquirer bank for car parks

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is:-

• To get information to help shape the approach over a forthcoming procurement exercise.
• To give suppliers advance notice of this future contract opportunity.

We will be renewing our payment processing services contract (ideally ready to award by around May 2016) for our five multi-storey car parks.

Our current contract is an all embracing service in which the payment processing service also sub-contracts the acquiring bank directly and manages that part of the service. We do not have any sort of direct relationship with the acquirer.

This type of model works well for us and it is our preference to maintain such an arrangement if that provides best value for money. However, some initial market research has indicated that some payment processing services are either:-

• a)unwilling or unable to sub contract with an acquirer and
• b)would expect us to have a separate contract in place directly with the acquirer.

We are seeking to gain a better understanding of the market sector before starting a formal invitation to tender process.

Further details of the requirement (including volume of transactions and value of spend) are included in the RFI document.

The RFI includes a number of questions which we hope you will respond to. This will help us to understand the commercial market’s attitude to risk and thus shape our procurement approach to achieve the best response from the market.

If you are interested in taking part, we will treat the information that you give us as confidential. It will not be used for any other purpose and it will not be shared with any other company or organisation.

If you respond your comments will be taken into account in moving the project forward and may influence how we shape the structure and make up of any future invitation to tender.

Deadline for providing information is Friday 18th December 2015.

Details about how to return the questionnaire are given in the RFI document.

If you have any questions or need more information, please get in touch with the contact officer.

Your input to this exercise will be very helpful and we very much hope that you will take part. If you only wish to respond to parts of the RFI (rather than the entire document) that is acceptable.