The merchant services arm of Lloyds Banking Group has announced the official launch of its partnership expansion with PayPoint.

The move will see PayPoint and card payment provider Handepay’s network of merchants combined with the bank’s merchant services to provide a comprehensive banking and payments offering to 60,000 UK small and medium sized businesses (SMEs).

The partnership aims to help businesses accelerate growth and support retail partners with new tools and features, including next day settlements, faster onboarding, a dedicated app, and customer data and insights.

Lloyds Cardnet Merchant Services offers end-to-end payment acceptance solutions to businesses across sectors, enabling them to make payments online, in-store, and over the phone, while Lloyds Merchant Services currently serves 34,000 UK businesses with onboarding to get them up and running with advanced payment and transaction capabilities, as well as specialist lending including invoice and asset financing.

As part of the new expansion, merchants will have access to an app from Handepay which incorporates consolidated sales and transactions updates, summarised sales performance, and trends and transactions filters.

The partnership expansion follows recent research from Lloyds which shows that over half of small businesses expect to increase their headcount in the next 12 months.

“Businesses, especially small ones, need simpler and quicker ways to get up and running with payments," said Melinda Roylett, managing director, Lloyds Merchant Services. "That’s why Lloyds Merchant Services has made huge investments in flexible yet robust POS and processing tech, partnerships, funding options and value-added services."

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