Take credit card payments online

There is no extra charge when accepting Google Pay with Tide Payment Links. You will be charged the standard transaction fee, which will be deducted from the payment before it enters your Tide account.

When your customers use Google Pay, Google Pay protects their payment info with multiple layers of security and doesn’t send their actual credit or debit card number with the payment. Instead, an encrypted virtual account number is used to represent their information – so the real card details stay safe.

Currently, you can accept card payments made with American Express, Visa and Mastercard, as well as digital wallets like Apple Pay & Google Pay, are accepted.

If you attempt to process a transaction that  we have considered high-risk, the transaction will be declined and we will notify you immediately.

Keeping evidence of the validity of your transactions is essential to helping us verify their security and lift any limits we’ve imposed.

To do this, we may request additional information, such as:

•  A signed copy of the invoice

•  A signed copy of the contract with your customer

•  Proof of delivery of goods or services

We may also request other relevant documentation, including your customer’s contact details.

There are a number of different scenarios in which we might consider a transaction to be high-risk, including if:

• you are new to Tide and we do not have a lot of processing history on your Tide Account

• there are sudden changes in the volume or size of transactions you’re processing

In certain situations, we may limit your ability to process transactions through Tide payment acceptance products. We impose these transaction limits to protect your Tide account, your customers and other Tide members from transactions that present an increased security risk.

Yes, there are limits. The minimum transaction limit for an invoice payment link is £5, and the maximum is £10,000. The minimum transaction limit for a payment link without an invoice is £5, and the maximum is £3,000.

Tide Payment Links is a secure and convenient payment method that enables collecting customer card payments remotely without the need to set up any infrastructure. Tide Payment Links could be shared via various communication channels such as SMS, email, social media, and within invoices.

We’re on a mission to help business owners with secure payment acceptance methods. It’s a balancing act though, certain company types are more complex to onboard. Currently, as part of our ongoing efforts to prevent fraud and protect our existing members, there may be occasions when restrictions are placed on who can use Tide Payment Links. Access to this feature may be restricted due to factors such as:

• The age of your business: at least 90 days must have passed from the day you opened your Tide account

• The nature of your business and its size

• How long you have held a Tide account

• The number and frequency of transactions you make with your Tide account

We hope to broaden this scope as we grow, but currently, we’re unable to sign up the following types of companies (the list is not exhaustive)::

• Fetish products

• Content: Books, magazines, audio, videos, websites, streaming services and other content formats deemed offensive or of a sexual nature

• Escort services and other services in the adult industry

• Financial service or money service business.

• E-wallet or e-money that can be monetized, re-sold or converted to physical and digital goods and services or otherwise exit the virtual world

• Credit repair and credit protection business

• Buy now pay later / Instalment payment methods

• Bearer share entities and binary options

• Independent or unlicensed financial advisors

• Insurance sales and services (life)

• Money transfer & remittance businesses

• Payroll, invoice & business services

• Provider or seller prepaid access/stored value

• Marketing related services

• Airlines and Cruise Lines

• Cloud storage, VPN, file sharing, (high-risk) cyber lockers

• Animals and wildlife products classified as endangered or protected

• Bail bonds and bankruptcy lawyers

• Bidding fee and penny auctions

• Certain social media business (e.g. click farms)

• Casual dating services

• Direct Marketing – Inbound teleservices, outbound telemarketing and travel-related arrangement services, Insurance services, catalogue merchants, door-to-door sales, multi-level marketing

• Governmental services, such as embassies or consulates

• Hazardous materials (B2B and B2C)

• Intravenous therapy or Medical benefit packages

• Key-entry telecom merchant

• Live-streaming Services with in-app currency and donations

• Mail order spouse or international match-making services

• Pawn shops

• Political, religious or Social Campaigning

• Drugs, and tools specifically intended for the production of drugs, drug paraphernalia, illegal drugs, substances designed to mimic illegal drugs and / or other psychoactive products

• Gambling services

• Products or services specifically offered or intended to be used to create, produce or grow drugs or drug ingredients

• Pharmaceuticals, prescription medicine and medical devices (including animal pharmaceuticals)

• Tobacco, smoking supplies, e-cigarettes, e-liquids, vaping liquid, vaping accessories

• Trade of fireworks, flammable or radioactive materials

• Trade of weapons, ammunitions, military arms, explosive devices and firearm parts

• Cryptocurrency exchange

• High-risk securities, such as contract for difference (CFD), financial spread betting,  initial coin offering (ICO), forex currency options, cryptocurrency options, trading and purchases

• Security brokers /investments of any kind including the purchase of securities, currencies, derivatives, commodities, shares, options, precious metals, other financial instruments

• Third-party Payment Processing such as aggregators, aggregators, including but not limited to marketplaces, platforms

• Staged Digital Wallet Operators

• Payment Facilitators or other internet payment or member service providers (IPSP or MPS)

• Payment service companies, including but not limited to peer-to-peer, bill payments, commissary accounts

• Decryption and descrambler products and services, devices designed to block, jam or interfere with cellular and personal communications

To enable Payment Links, log in to your Tide account via the web and click ‘Get Paid’ > ‘Payment Links’. Read and decide if you accept the Terms and Conditions. If you accept them, your account will move to ‘Pending’ and then show an ‘Available’ status. Refresh the page to see the Payment Links dashboard that will contain any future-issued Payment Links.

The meaning of the different status types is as follows:

• Available - You will see this status if you have not yet been onboarded to use Payment Links

• Pending - This means your onboarding process to use Payment Links is underway between Tide and our payment provider

• Active - You’ll see this status when you have been successfully onboarded and Payment Links is available to use

• Unavailable - If you see this status, it means that your member access has been deactivated, usually as a result of regulatory obligations that we have to comply with. Should this occur, then our Member Support team will work with you to resolve the issue.

You can accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express contactless cards from UK or foreign issuers, but all transactions and settlements will be in GBP. 

For now, we don’t accept payments with cards issued in these countries: 

• Afghanistan

• Barbados

• Belarus

• Bosnia & Herzegovina

• Bulgaria

• Burkina Faso

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Central African Republic

• Congo Democratic Republic

• Croatia

• Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)

• Democratic Republic of the Congo

• Gibraltar

• Guinea

• Guinea-Bissau

• Haiti

• Iran

• Iraq

• Jamaica

• Lebanon

• Libya

• Mali

• Morocco

• Mozambique

• Myanmar

• Nicaragua

• Nigeria

• Philippines

• Russia

• Senegal

• Somalia

• South Africa

• South Sudan

• Sudan

• Syria

• Tanzania

• Turkey

• Uganda

• Ukraine Sanctioned Regions (Donetsk, Crimea, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia)

• United Arab Emirates

• Venezuela

• Vietnam

• Yemen

• Zimbabwe

* This list is subject to change.

Payment Links can only be paid in GBP and with a UK bank card, or bank transfer from a UK account.

A payment link can only be used to accept one payment, from one customer. 

Tide Instant Checkout is your solution to this. Create links using this feature, that can be used repeatedly, by all of your customers.

On a mobile device, you will receive 2 types of notifications that will enable you to check the status of your Invoice Payment Links request:

1. A notification to let you know that your customer has successfully made their payment.

2. A second notification to advise when the payment has been initiated to your Tide Account.

Other than these notifications, you can also check your Tide account at any time via the app to confirm the receipt of payments into your Tide Account.

The amount will be directly credited to your Tide Business Bank Account within 3 working days. No action is required from you.

• If you have sent an payment link, then all transactions relating to this will appear in the account statement from Tide Payout

• If you have made payments using an invoice payment link, then all transactions relating to these will appear in the account statement from Tide Platform Ltd *Tide Member’s Name*

Please note that many customers will initiate chargebacks if they see payments to companies that they do not recognise. Therefore, please ensure that you make your customers aware of what wording will be displayed on both the billing and statement descriptors for their transactions.

There are certain costs incurred by Tide at the time of processing a payment link transaction and a fee is charged relating to your account. Our fees incorporate costs to us such as interchange, scheme fees and payment processing fees. The fees are automatically deducted from your Payout amount. From time to time, we may offer time-limited promotional Fee discounts, so please make sure to read any notices we give you regarding such promotional terms. We may withdraw or change promotional offers at any time.

If a customer payment fails, they will be asked to try again. Typical reasons for a payment failing include errors with entering the card number, expiry date or CVC number, or potentially even a connection issue. These issues can usually be resolved when the customer tries to enter the payment for the second time. Another reason for a payment being declined or failing is that the Payment Links function may be temporarily unavailable. In the rare event of this occurring, the customer would see a notification advising that this method of payment is currently unavailable. They would then need to make their payment by bank transfer instead.