[ubuntu-uk] Lack of support for small business

[Rob Beard]

On 18/11/11 23:44, Gareth France wrote:
> I'm not looking for a loan, I need to be able to process credit cards,
> if you go to a computer fair do you go with £500 in your pocket to buy a
> pc with? Or do you take your card? To get the card processing I need a
> business account.
>
> No overdraft
> No loan
> No risk
>
> I still have to fight to get it. But I'm having to fight because I'm
> selling computers. It's madness!

You might be able to get a merchant account with someone.  Do you have a 
business plan all written out to show the bank?

My wife is currently in the process of setting up a business, luckily 
she's found some pretty good support in business startup workshops in 
our area (Torbay) but she is going through her business plan at the 
moment and it's taking her a long time with so many things she has to 
think about.  She's also not looking get any credit as luckily her 
business doesn't have that much of an outlay.


It's possible that the banks maybe fussy about startup companies.  My 
wife ended up going to Santander for her business account and that was 
before she did her business plan, she hasn't banked with them before so 
she was a completely new customer.

You might want to have a look at a business account from Paypal.  When I 
was running my business I managed to set one up and it was quite 
painless.  Although it's not an ideal situation it might help.  It might 
also be worth bearing in mind that some people might not want to go 
spending 500 quid at a computer fair anyway.  Sadly the computer market 
is so overrun these days that there is so much competition out there (I 
found that in my area alone there were about 7 other computer companies 
doing the same sort of thing).

Good luck anyway, doing a quick Google search came up with a couple of 
companies offering free trials on credit card machines so maybe you 
might be able to get one from one of those companies.

Rob