The council has an existing contract in place as set out in the below decision:
Decision - Direct award of contract to payment service provider and acquiring merchant bank for processing parking pay and display credit/debit card transactions - Herefordshire Council

Suppliers in this market only have PCI compliance to use certain accredited hardware, the hardware operated by the council (ATOS terminals) on its payment machines only allow for the current Payment Service Provider (PSP) to process payments.

If the council were to change the current hardware so that another PSP can process payments, the cost of replacing the devices is far in excess of any potential saving, if any. Therefore, the most economic option for the council at this stage is to remain with the current provider, using the current devices. There is no reason why any of the current devices should be changed given that they are all in full working order and they are expected to remain so throughout this extended contract.