Best payment link solution for builders merchants and the construction trade
Best payment link solution for builders merchants and the construction trade
Most payment tools assume the buyer is standing at a till with a card in their hand. Trade does not work that way.
A special order needs a deposit before it leaves the supplier. An account customer hits their credit limit on a Friday with a delivery booked for Monday. A driver is on site with £4,000 of insulation on the lorry and no way to take the money. In each case the payment has to happen away from the counter, and often with someone who is not the person who collected the goods.
That is the job a payment link does. But payment link solutions differ more than the marketing suggests, and the differences bite harder in trade than in almost any other sector.
Here is the short answer. The best payment link solution for a builders merchant offers Pay by Bank alongside cards, lets you switch cards off above a value you choose, carries your branding so the request is trusted on site, and feeds a clean reference back into your merchant system so credit control is not matching payments by hand. Prommt was built around those four things.
Where builders merchants lose payments?
Collection and payment are separated by time and by person. Someone takes the goods today; someone else pays weeks later. Every gap between the two is somewhere a payment stalls.
The cards are commercial. A trade customer settling £12,000 is not reaching for a personal debit card, and that carries a cost most merchants never see itemised.
Both are fixable. A payment platform built for builders merchants and construction trades lets you request payment the moment the goods are ready, which closes the timing gap. It also orchestrates between Pay by Bank and card, so the method that costs you less in fees is the default on your largest orders. That is the problem Prommt was built for.
What to compare when you choose a provider?
1. Does it offer Pay by Bank, not just cards?
This is the single biggest cost lever available to a builders merchant, and most providers still treat it as an afterthought.
Under the retained UK Interchange Fee Regulation, consumer debit interchange is capped at 0.2% and consumer credit at 0.3%. Commercial cards are excluded from those caps. In practice, business, corporate and purchasing cards run between roughly 1% and 2.5% interchange, and industry bodies have put the range as high as 2.4% in the EU. Because trade customers pay on commercial cards far more often than the general public does, a builders merchant’s card cost is structurally higher than a retailer’s on the same headline rate.
Pay by Bank skips the card payment rails entirely. The customer approves a transfer in their own banking app and the money moves account to account. No interchange, no scheme fees, no chargeback window. Repeat that across a year of large orders and the savings can significantly impact the P&L.
Ask any provider two questions: is Pay by Bank offered as an alternative payment method on the same link, and can you control when it is offered?
2. Can you set a card limit and a default method?
Look for orchestration controls: the ability to set which method is displayed by default, and a value threshold above which cards are simply not offered. That second control is how merchants protect their margin on large orders without having awkward conversations at the counter. Below the threshold, let people pay however they like. Above it, route to bank transfer.
3. Does the request look like it came from you?
Trade customers are targeted by invoice redirection fraud constantly. A generic checkout page on an unfamiliar domain gets ignored, or worse, gets reported to the customer’s finance team as suspicious.
Branding earns its keep here. It decides whether a link gets paid in ten minutes or sits unopened while someone rings the branch to check it is real. Check what the customer actually sees: your logo, your colours, your name in the message, your reference on the receipt. All of these elements help to reassure your customer, building confidence and trust to pay.
4. Will it reconcile against your merchant system?
A payment that arrives in a bank account with no reference against an invoice number creates work rather than removing it. Every unmatched payment is a credit controller opening two screens.
Ask which merchant systems the provider already connects to. Prommt integrates with Border’s CounterAct, Agility from DMSi and Epicor, among others. If a provider cannot name a single system used in your sector, you are buying a reconciliation problem alongside the payment tool.
5. Who can send a request, and from where?
Trade payments get requested by branch staff, credit control, the sales desk, and sometimes a driver. A tool that only lives on a finance workstation covers a fraction of the moments where money is actually collectable.
Look for role based access, mobile capability, and a shared view of what has been sent and what is still outstanding, so two people do not chase the same customer twice.
6. Where does fraud liability sit?
All online card payments in the UK and Europe are subject to Strong Customer Authentication, which means 3D Secure 2 authentication run by the customer’s own bank. Applied correctly, 3DS2 shifts liability for fraudulent transactions from the merchant to the card issuer.
That protection only exists if the provider applies 3DS2 properly on every card request. It also removes a habit that is still common in the trade: staff writing card numbers on a pad during a phone call. A secure payment link takes the card details out of your building entirely, which shrinks your PCI scope as a side effect.
7. What happens after the link is sent?
The link is the easy part. Getting paid is the follow up. Ask what visibility you get on status, whether automated reminders can be sent, how they are sent, for example, can SMS be used as a reminder to increase urgency pay? how failures are surfaced, and what the audit trail looks like when a customer disputes that they were ever asked.
Why Prommt fits the builders merchant model?
Prommt is a remote payment platform built for high value, non retail transactions. The features map directly onto the list above.
Pay by Link. Payment requests go out by SMS, email or chat, from the counter, from credit control, or from the road. The customer taps and pays. No card details are read out, written down, or stored on your side.
Pay by Bank on the same platform. Prommt offers instant account to account payment alongside cards rather than as a separate flow. The customer pays from their own banking app, so there are no mistyped account numbers and no chargeback exposure.
Smart orchestration. This is the feature that separates Prommt from a generic link tool. Prommt presents the right payment method based on transaction value, using a threshold you define. Below your threshold, offer both. Above it, route to Pay by Bank and stop paying commercial card interchange on your largest value orders.
Automated credit control. Arrears chasing and payment plans are handled by the platform rather than by a person working through a spreadsheet on a Friday afternoon.
Branded checkout. The customer completes payment on a page carrying your brand, which is what stops a legitimate request being mistaken for a phishing attempt.
Compliance built in. Prommt payments meet PCI, GDPR, PSD2 and equivalent regulations, and card requests are 3D Secure 2 compliant, so fraud liability sits with the card issuer rather than with you.
Real time visibility. Status and reporting across every transaction, so nobody chases a customer who paid yesterday.
The proof
MGN Builders Merchants, one of the fastest growing merchants in the London and Essex area, has used Prommt payment requests since 2021 and added Pay by Bank in October 2022. More than 10% of their payments now run through Open Banking, producing significant card processing savings. They use Prommt’s smart toggle to offer card or bank payment based on a purchase value threshold they set themselves.
At Gleeson Homes, Treasury Manager Suzanne Yates reports faster payments, better visibility and tracking, and easier reconciliation for staff since implementing Prommt.
FAQs
What is a payment link for builders merchants?
A payment link is a secure request sent by SMS, email or messaging that lets a trade customer pay an invoice, deposit or account balance from their phone. It replaces card details over the phone, cheque collection and chasing bank transfers with no reference.
Are payment links safe for large trade payments?
Yes, when the provider applies 3D Secure 2 authentication and the payment page carries your branding. 3DS2 is mandatory for online payments in the UK and Europe under Strong Customer Authentication rules, and it moves fraud liability from the merchant to the customer’s bank.
Can we stop customers paying large invoices by card?
Yes. Prommt’s smart orchestration lets you set a purchase value threshold above which only Pay by Bank is offered, and choose which method is shown by default below it. MGN Builders Merchants uses exactly this control to cut card processing costs.
Does it integrate with our merchant system?
Prommt integrates with Border’s CounterAct, Agility from DMSi and Epicor, among others. Ask any provider to name the systems they already connect to in your sector before you commit.
Can branch staff send payment requests, or only head office?
With Prommt, requests can be sent by any authorised user, which means the counter, the sales desk and credit control can all collect at the moment the customer is ready to pay.