What was the challenge?
At a crucial point in the 2023 season Lincoln City Football Club were informed by their incumbent card Acquirer – a multinational organisation and one of the world’s largest card processors – that they would no longer be able to work with the club ‘due to the risks involved’. The club was given a 6-week notice period until their ticketing sales merchant accounts would be terminated.
This meant that there was a significant risk that the club could be left unable to facilitate ticket sales by card, just before their season ticket renewals launch date. In an industry that often requires owner funding to remain competitive, this was a substantial setback for this well-run club.
Finding a solution
Acquired.com reached out to the club to offer a rapid solution which would mitigate card acquiring risk for the club. We set the club up with a new unsecured merchant account from a market leading card acquirer, that could be integrated with the existing ticketing platform used on the point-of-sale devices in the club’s ticket office.
In addition to this, Acquired.com also set the club up with a second unsecured merchant account from an additional card acquirer, for the club to use on our bespoke virtual terminal and payment link platform. The benefits of a multi-acquirer strategy include mitigating the risk of downtime if one acquirer has an outage for any reason or changes their risk policy, as well as providing more options for transaction approval and cost control.
The Acquired.com difference
Lincoln City are now utilising payment link technology to send embedded payment links to fans for renewals and ad hoc purchases, complimenting their existing payment facilities. This streamlined and customer-centric payment method will help to simplify the season ticket renewal process for fans. Acquired.com provided comprehensive training for the ticket office staff so they could quickly get to grips with this new payment method and ensure the club is able to maximise efficiency in the renewals process.
Peter Mellows, Director of Finance at Lincoln City said “Acquired.com have hit the ground running and solved several of our payment challenges in a very time sensitive situation. Without their efficiency and knowledge, we would not have been able to make such a smooth transition to new acquiring partners and payment methods. I have been really impressed by the Acquired.com team and look forward to working with them in the future as we look to further optimise our payment systems and deliver streamlined purchasing processes for our fans”.
Grant Evans, Head of Partnerships, Acquired.com said “We are delighted to have helped Lincoln City through this challenging situation with their previous supplier. Unfortunately, these situations are becoming far more common place in the ticketing industry, as suppliers continue to worry about the lasting effect of the global pandemic and the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Utilising an acquirer agnostic payments and open banking platform such as Acquired.com allows live event businesses to have multiple providers in place, ensuring failover contingency in the event that a specific payments supplier no longer has the risk appetite to support payments for live events. I expect to see numerous live events businesses following the example of Lincoln City Football Club and adopting a multi-acquirer strategy moving forwards. We look forward to working with the club over the coming years to continue helping them to redefine their payments strategy.”
