Merchant agreement

This agreement is between Sternpay Inc. Ltd (“Smyl”, “we”, “us”), the company behind Smyl, and the business that runs a shop on Smyl (“you”). When we talk about the people who buy from you, we say “your customers”.

It applies from when you join the Back office. Before Pay by Bank is switched on for your shop, the owner confirms they agree to this version on behalf of the business. Whoever accepts it confirms they are allowed to act for the business.

This is version 2. For shops already taking Pay by Bank payments, version 2 takes effect on 1 December 2026; until then, version 1 applies to them. For every other shop, it applies from when the owner accepts it.

Back office

Where you and your team run your shop on Smyl: catalogue, stock, sales, posts and settings.

Pay by Bank

Customers paying you straight from their bank account, approved in their own banking app.

Payment provider

The regulated company that makes Pay by Bank payments and refunds.

Smyl points

Points your customers earn when they pay by bank and can spend at shops that take Pay by Bank.

Listed

A shop on Smyl that isn’t taking Pay by Bank payments.

Pay by Bank sale

A payment a customer makes to your shop with Pay by Bank. Cash and card sales aren’t Pay by Bank sales.

Plan

What you pay for Pay by Bank: a monthly fee and a percentage of each Pay by Bank sale. Your plan is set by how many Pay by Bank sales you take in a month.

Statement

What we send you each month in your Back office: your plan, your Pay by Bank sales and what’s due.

• Your shop page, with its own web address, and a page in the Smyl app.
• A place in search when someone near you looks for what you stock.
• The Back office: your catalogue, stock, sales, receipts, posts, reviews, team and insights.
• Receipts sent to customers’ phones, for Pay by Bank, cash and card.
• Once you’re verified and you’ve agreed to your plan’s price, Pay by Bank at your counter, and Smyl points for your customers.

How search orders shops

Search shows shops that have what the shopper looked for, nearest to them first. Search never shows prices. No shop can pay to appear higher.

• You’re responsible for what you publish: your shop’s details, catalogue, prices, stock, opening hours, photos and posts.
• Keep it accurate. Prices on your page should be the prices you charge.
• Only publish what you have the right to use.
• We can correct obvious mistakes, and take down anything that breaks this agreement or our Acceptable use rules. We’ll tell you why.
• If Smyl listed your shop before you joined, you can claim it. We check you run the shop before we hand it over.

Before you can take payments, we and our payment provider must check your business. The owner gives us the business’s details, their own details and photo ID, and the bank account payments should go to. Sometimes we ask for more, such as a document showing the shop trades at its address.

• Most checks take 1 to 3 working days.
• We can refuse to switch on payments, for example if we can’t confirm who owns the business. We’ll tell you why, unless the law stops us.
• If we refuse, you can apply again after 30 days. Your listing stays live in the meantime.
• Tell us straight away if your business details or bank account change.

How we handle this information is in our Privacy policy.

Listing your shop on Smyl and using the Back office is free. Cash and card receipts are always free, and they never count towards your plan.

Your plan

• Once Pay by Bank is switched on, you pay for it on a plan. Each plan has a monthly fee and a percentage of each Pay by Bank sale.
• Your plan is set by how many Pay by Bank sales your shop takes in each calendar month, in UK time: Starter, up to 499; Growth, 500 to 5,000; High value, more than 5,000. You don’t choose it, and a busy month and a quiet month can be on different plans.
• Only Pay by Bank sales count. The percentage is of what your customers pay by bank, not the part they pay with Smyl points.
• If the plan below would have cost you less that month, you’re charged on that plan. Both prices are worked out on that month’s Pay by Bank sales.

When you pay the monthly fee

• Your monthly fee starts with the first full calendar month after Pay by Bank is switched on.
• After that, you pay it for a month if Pay by Bank was available to you for the whole month, or if you took at least one Pay by Bank sale that month.
• If Smyl paused or suspended Pay by Bank at your shop at any point in a month, or it wasn’t available for any other reason, and you took no Pay by Bank sales, you pay no monthly fee for that month.
• The percentage applies to every Pay by Bank sale.

Where you see the figures

Each plan’s monthly fee and percentage are shown in your Back office before Pay by Bank is switched on, and you agree to them when you accept this agreement. They stay in Settings in your Back office, and every statement shows the figures it used.

Statements and paying

• On the 1st of each month we make a statement for the month before, in your Back office. It shows your plan, your Pay by Bank sales and what’s due.
• Pay each statement by bank transfer within 14 days, using the reference on it. We never take the money automatically.
• A sale refunded before its month’s statement is made doesn’t count. If you refund a sale after its statement, your next statement gives you a credit for it.
• If nothing is due for a month, its statement says “Nothing to pay”.
• We keep statements for 6 years.

Changes to the figures

We can change a plan’s monthly fee or percentage. We email the owner first. The new figures start on the earliest 1st of a month that is at least 15 days after we tell you, and the email gives your own date. Until then, your current figures apply. The plans and their ranges are part of this agreement, and change only with it.

VAT

Smyl isn’t registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to your statements. If we register, we’ll tell you before VAT is added, as for any change to this agreement.

Custom plans

A Custom plan has a monthly fee and percentage agreed with your shop, for groups of shops, markets and anything that doesn’t fit a plan. It takes the place of the plan your sales would set.

• A rise is a higher monthly fee or a higher percentage than your current figures, even if the other one goes down. We make a rise only with your agreement in writing. Your current figures are your Custom plan’s, or, if you’re not on one, those of the plan you were last charged on. A figure higher than one in any Custom plan you had in the past 12 months is a rise too.
• Moving onto a Custom plan, or a lower Custom figure, starts on the earliest 1st of a month that is at least 15 days after we tell you. Anything sooner needs your agreement in writing.
• Ending a Custom plan takes effect on the earliest 1st of a month that is at least 15 days after we tell you. Your plan then follows your Pay by Bank sales again.
• We email the owner whenever a Custom plan is set, changed or ended.
• A Custom plan starts part-way through a month only if you agree to that in writing. That month, sales before the start date are charged at the percentage of the plan in force before it, and sales from the start date at the Custom percentage. That month’s monthly fee is the Custom one.

• Your customer approves each payment in their own banking app.
• The payment provider sends the money from your customer’s bank to your business’s bank account, usually within seconds.
• Smyl never holds your money. Smyl is not a bank.
• Every payment appears in Transactions in your Back office, and your customer gets a receipt.
• Check that a payment shows as paid before you hand over the goods.

When you sell to a customer, the contract is between you and them. Smyl isn’t part of the sale. You’re responsible for what you sell and for your customers’ legal rights, such as under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

• You can refund a Pay by Bank sale in full from your Back office for up to 120 days after the sale.
• The refund goes from your business’s bank account back to your customer’s, through the payment provider.
• For cash and card sales, refund your customer the way they paid.
• Deal with refund requests fairly and promptly.
• Pay by Bank payments have no card chargebacks. If a customer can’t sort something out with you, they can tell us, and we’ll ask you about it.

Our Refunds and disputes page explains this to your customers.

• Your customers earn 1 Smyl point for every whole £1 they pay you by bank, up to daily limits for each customer and for each shop that stop misuse. Your own team don’t earn points at your shop.
• Your customers are told: “Points expire if you don’t earn or spend any for 12 months. Earning or spending any points starts the 12 months again. The 12 months pause while points can’t be spent anywhere on Smyl. We’ll remind you at least 30 days before.” Expired points can’t be spent, so nothing is owed for them.
• Customers can spend points at your counter. At least £1 of every sale is still paid by bank.
• Smyl pays for points, not you. Each month we pay you the value of the points spent at your shop in months that have ended. It goes through the payment provider to your bank account.
• If you refund a sale where points were spent, we take that value off what we owe you. If refunds are more than we owe you, the difference carries over to the next month.
• You can see the points used on each sale, and what we owe you, in Transactions.

• Customers with a Smyl receipt from your shop can review it.
• You can always reply, in public, under the review.
• You can’t hide, edit or remove a review, and you can’t pay us to. You can report a review that breaks our rules.
• You and your team must not review your own shop, or offer anything in return for a review.

Our Reviews policy has the full rules.

• The owner can invite managers and counter staff. Each person sees only what their role allows.
• You’re responsible for what your team does in the Back office.
• Each person signs in with their own email. Don’t share sign-ins.
• Remove people from your team when they leave.
• Tell us straight away if you think someone has got into your Back office who shouldn’t have.

• For each sale, you see your customer’s display name and what they bought from you. You never see their email, their bank login, or what they do at other shops.
• You see how many people follow you, never who.
• Use what you see only for your own sales records, refunds and serving your customers.
• Follow data protection law when you do. Our Privacy policy explains how we handle it.

You and your team must follow our Acceptable use rules, including the extra rules for shops.

If we restrict or suspend your shop

We can take something down, pause Pay by Bank at your shop, or suspend your shop. We do this if you break this agreement, if we suspect fraud, to protect customers, or if the law or our payment provider requires it.

While Pay by Bank is paused, your page stays visible and you can still send cash and card receipts and refund past sales. While a shop is suspended, it is hidden and can’t take payments.

We’ll tell you what we did and why, unless the law stops us. You can ask us to look again within 6 months of a decision. In the app, open the review or Account › Reports you made and tap Ask us to look again. In the Back office, use Settings › Decisions. Or email hello@smylpay.com. A Smyl admin looks at it again, and we tell you what we decided.

If you want to leave

The owner can ask us to close your shop in Settings in the Back office. We close it once nothing is owed either way and no sales or refunds are in progress. Your page and catalogue are then removed. We keep some records, such as sales records, for the time our Privacy policy sets out.

If we stop providing Smyl to your shop

Apart from the reasons above, we’ll give you at least 30 days’ notice, with our reasons, before we stop providing Smyl to your shop.

• We will provide Smyl with reasonable care and skill, but we can’t promise it will always be available or free of faults.
• You’re responsible for your shop, what you sell, and your dealings with your customers.
• Neither of us is responsible for losses the other couldn’t have foreseen, or for loss of profit or business.
• Nothing in this agreement limits responsibility for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn’t allow to be limited.

We may change this agreement, for example when Smyl changes or the law does. We’ll email the owner and show a notice in the Back office at least 15 days before a change takes effect, unless the law requires a change sooner. If you don’t agree, you can close your shop before the change takes effect. Changes to a plan’s figures, including a Custom plan’s, follow the Fees section.

This agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales can decide any dispute about it.

Sternpay Inc. Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 15075172, registered office 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. Smyl is a financial technology product, not a bank.

Questions or complaints about Smyl: email hello@smylpay.com, or use Help in your Back office. We aim to reply within 1 working day.