Card machine leasing companies in the UK

How a card machine lease works

Most businesses that rent a terminal through a sales agent sign two agreements on the same day. One is with the acquirer that processes card payments. The other is a hire agreement for the terminal, often with a separate finance company. The agent (the industry calls them ISOs) earns commission on both. The PSR asked the industry before setting its rule. Most providers the PSR asked supplied at least some contracts with initial terms longer than 18 months, more common among merchants signed by ISOs, "especially where the terminal is supplied (or funded) by a leasing/financing company". Contracts with initial terms over three years were "less common".

The two contracts end separately. Cancelling the card processing does not end the hire, and a buyout offer from a new provider may cover one but not the other. Read both before you count the cost of switching.

The PSR’s 18-month rule

In PSR PS22/2, Card-acquiring market remedies: final decision (October 2022), the Payment Systems Regulator set Specific Direction 16: terminal lease and rental contracts must have an initial minimum term of no more than 18 months, then move to rolling renewal terms of no more than 31 calendar days. The detail that decides whether it helps you:

• It covers merchants with annual card turnover of up to £10 million.
• It applies to contracts signed after the implementation deadline, three months after the directions were given in October 2022, so from January 2023.
• Existing contracts could complete their initial minimum term before moving to rolling renewals of no more than 31 days.
• Any exit or termination fees on terminal lease and rental contracts must be cost based, fully explained and transparent before you sign (PS22/2, para 2.61).
• It does not apply where you hire a terminal from a company that has no contractual link with your acquirer or the sales agent (ISO) selling that acquirer’s service (PS22/2, para 2.62).

The 14 directed providers:

Why it took a regulator: one stakeholder told the PSR the cost of selling through an ISO is around £800 (terminal plus the salesperson’s commission), and that recovering it over 18 months instead of three years would add around £22 a month. Some ISOs asked the PSR to allow initial terms of 30 months to four years instead. The PSR kept the 18-month cap.

Merchant Rentals

Merchant Rentals Limited is the lessor most merchants search for by name. It is owned by PayPoint plc. PayPoint completed its purchase of Handepay and Merchant Rentals in February 2021. It is a third-party lessor: it hires terminals to merchants signed up by payment providers, acquirers and ISOs, and asks for your Merchant ID to start a hire. It is authorised and regulated by the FCA for consumer credit, registration number 720500. Hire agreements "may be regulated or unregulated, depending on the customer".

• From 6 January 2023, customers who received Merchant Rentals’ notice move to a one-month rolling term with one month’s notice once the initial minimum period ends; Merchant Rentals waived the extension periods in the original contracts.
• Ending during the initial minimum period: you "may be required to pay the balance of rentals for the remaining months". Rentals already unpaid stay payable after the change.
• The hire contract lets Merchant Rentals raise rentals by 1.5% for every 1% rise in Corporation Tax (clause 2.5 or 2.6, depending on contract type).
• Hire term: Not published (the initial minimum period is set in each signed agreement). Rental: Not published.
• Handepay is a credit broker and introducer (FCA FRN 673564); card acquiring comes from Lloyds Bank (Cardnet) or EVO Payments UK, and the terminal hire is a separate contract with Merchant Rentals.

Merchant Rentals’ customer support is on 01942 407980. If your terminal came through Handepay, see our Handepay cancellation guide.

Payment Save and other names

Payment Save: Not published (the site returned a WordPress critical error on 1 November 2026, so we could not read any terms). Merchants also search for names such as Transax, Vesta, Axcess, Black Star, First Pay and EMS. We have not reviewed those firms’ contracts, so we make no claims about them. The checks further down work for any lease.

Leases you meet without asking

Some providers build a long term into the package rather than a separate lease:

• Payzone: The Minimum Period is the longer of 3 years from the Effective Date and the minimum duration of any add-on service (definitions, clause 25.1), and you must give at least 12 months’ written notice, and notice given during the Minimum Period only takes effect at the end of it (clause 2.4). See the Payzone review.
• Clover: End the Clover (software and device) agreement inside the 18-month Minimum Period and you pay a Software Termination Fee equal to the monthly software fees left until the end of that period (section 13.1). See the Clover review.
• Lloyds Cardnet: Castles Saturn "Everyday card reader": £23 a month rental + VAT. Lloyds’ "New to card payments" guide says a typical minimum term for the card machine agreement "can vary between 18 – 48 months", with a separate 6-month minimum on the merchant agreement. Read via the search index on 1 November 2026; the page returned "Service Unavailable" when we loaded it, and it may predate the PSR rule.

Worked example: what a long lease really costs

Take a rental of £23 a month (Lloyds Cardnet’s published Castles Saturn rental, used as the illustration rate) and compare an 18-month term with a 48-month one, for the house example shop taking £5,000 a month on cards.

How to get out of a card machine lease

1. Find the hire agreement, not just the processing contract, and note the lessor’s name.
2. Find the start date and the initial minimum period. Work out the months left.
3. Ask who your acquirer is. If it is on the PSR list and you signed after the rule began, a term over 18 months is worth challenging in writing.
4. Ask the lessor for a written settlement figure and how it is calculated. Exit fees must be cost based.
5. Give notice in writing, keep proof of sending, and diarise the end of the initial period.
6. Get a buyout quote that names the hire agreement as well as the processing contract.

Our guide to getting out of a card machine contract and the cancellation hub cover the processing side. Whether to rent at all is in card machine rental vs purchase.

Should you stay put?

If you have a few months left and the settlement figure is close to the rentals you would pay anyway, stay and leave cleanly at the end. If you are on a long lease with years left and a high rental, a new provider’s buyout can make the switch pay; send the hire agreement with your statement to our free statement review and we will tell you which.

Card machine leasing questions