Trust Payments Review
7.0/10UK and Malta regulated PSP-acquirer descended from 1997's Secure Trading, processing £1bn+ a month, with named UKGC, Bulgarian, and Romanian gambling clients and card payouts typically under 30 minutes.
Our read
Roughly 27 methods, card and European APM flavored, with settlement in 14 currencies (Jul 2026).
FCA API permission in the UK, an MFSA FI license held since 2012 with Visa and Mastercard principal membership and 30-country passporting, plus a gambling-specific ONJN Class 2 effective January 2024.
One integration covers gateway and merchant account, with hosted pages, cart plugins, and a public help center, held back by no open API reference and no public sandbox.
Sub-30-minute card payouts 24/7/365, and settlement runs in 14 currencies, though merchant settlement timing itself is only described as flexible with no public T+n.
29 years of lineage and current named gambling clients, docked for unnamed PE investors and scale figures with no breakdown behind them.
Nothing numeric is public: no rates, minimums, reserves, or settlement terms, with the only hard commercial datapoint being BetGoodwin's 8-year contract length.
Methodology. Our own score, a weighted average of six dimensions, tilted toward licensing and settlement. PSP-acquirer files carry the segment's heaviest weights on licensing at 0.24 and settlement at 0.20, which is why two published financial licenses, an ONJN Class 2 entry, and documented sub-30-minute card payouts hold Trust Payments at 7.0 despite a modest methods list and a 5.3 for a commercial picture the public never sees priced. Read the full methodology
- Full-stack by license: a Visa and Mastercard principal member through its MFSA-licensed Malta FI (since 2012) plus a UK FCA payment-institution permission, so acquiring and gateway come in one integration.
- A deliberate EU gambling footprint: ONJN Class 2 effective January 2024 on top of Malta passporting across 30 EU/EEA countries.
- Named, current gambling clients instead of stale logos: BetGoodwin since 2017 with an 8-year renewal announced July 3, 2026, Winbet Bulgaria since June 2022, Viva Games Romania, and SOFTSWISS as a gateway partner.
- Player payouts with hard numbers: Visa Direct and Mastercard Send push payments, 24/7/365, typically under 30 minutes.
- ProbH gambling-harm scoring is a product no direct PSP-acquirer peer sells, with sub-second API scoring across onboarding, deposits, and monitoring.
- Method coverage is modest: about 27 methods, heavily card and European APM flavored, so a long-tail APM strategy needs additional providers.
- Gambling capability stops at the UK and EU: no US approvals, no LatAm presence, no crypto payout rails, with the US presence corporate heritage only.
- The PE investors behind the 2019 buyout are unnamed, and the headline scale figures (a 6% share of UK/EU27 gambling processing in 2023, £1bn+ monthly volume) come with no breakdown behind them.
- Three named gambling operators is a short public roster next to the Nuvei and Paysafe tier.
Small-to-mid UK and EU licensed operators (UKGC, ONJN, Bulgarian, MGA-market) that want gateway and merchant account from one regulated counterparty, fast card payouts, and the ProbH harm score, especially in the three markets where reference clients already run. Crypto exchanges needing fiat ramps are a proven adjacent fit.
US-facing or LatAm-focused operators, offshore and Curacao books, and anyone who needs a 100+ method long-tail, multi-acquirer routing, or a published rate card before shortlisting a provider.
Markets & licensing
Trust Payments keeps its regulatory references in plain sight: FCA FRN 932557 for TrustUK Payments Ltd and MFSA-licensed Trust Payments (Malta) Ltd, C56013, a financial institution since 2012 and a principal member of Visa and Mastercard passported across 30 EU/EEA countries. A Romanian ONJN Class 2 payment-processing license, effective January 2024, adds the gambling-specific entry.
There are no money-transmitter licenses and no state gaming vendor approvals. The US presence is corporate heritage (Secure Trading once ran a US arm) rather than licensed gambling-payments capability. US-facing operators should look elsewhere entirely.
The UK is where this company started and where its longest gambling relationship runs: TrustUK Payments Ltd holds an FCA Authorised Payment Institution permission (FRN 932557), and UKGC operator BetGoodwin has processed through Trust Payments since 2017, announcing an 8-year renewal on July 3, 2026.
- UK (FCA) Authorised Payment InstitutionUnited Kingdom
- Payment services under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 · TrustUK Payments Ltd · FRN 932557 · Authorised Payment Institution since Mar 15, 2021
- Malta (MFSA) Financial InstitutionMalta / EU-EEA
- Payment services and card acquiring as a Visa and Mastercard principal member, passported to 30 EU/EEA countries · Trust Payments (Malta) Ltd · C56013, MFSA ID STF · licensed since 2012 with a 2nd Schedule passporting entry
- Romania (ONJN) Class 2Romania
- Payment processing for ONJN-licensed gambling operators · Trust Payments (Malta) Ltd · effective January 2024 · Viva Games live since Oct 2025
Licensing tier: Strong on substance for a mid-size acquirer: own scheme membership and a gambling-specific ONJN entry beat the gateway-only norm. The caveat is a PCI certificate that names no level.
Markets with named, licensed gambling clients behind them in 2025-2026: BetGoodwin (UKGC), Winbet (Bulgaria), and Viva Games (Romania). The Malta passporting technically opens all 30 EU/EEA countries, but these three are the ones with operators behind them.
No US licenses of any kind are held. The sales posture is explicit: EU-incorporated gaming operators, with no offshore or Curacao acceptance.
Methods & rails
What you can reach
A2A rails
Card schemes
Flagship local methods
Payout rails
Processing features
Integrations & engineering
One contract and one API instead of a separate deal per studio, feed, or PSP. Here's what connects, how fast, and on what stack.
One contract brings the regulated pieces together: the TRU Connect gateway with a full API or a brand-customizable, multi-language hosted payment page, card acquiring through the Malta FI's own Visa and Mastercard principal membership, and TRU Fraud Check screening included as standard on gaming accounts. Payouts run as a separate product over Visa Direct and Mastercard Send, and ProbH exposes its harm score through an API endpoint or the merchant interface. Shopping-cart plugins cover mainstream e-commerce stacks, while gambling merchants get in-house gaming specialists watching approval rates, BIN blocks, and local transaction mix.
Up and running in as little as 3 days, with underwriting decisions inside 48 hours in some cases. Both are standard-merchant figures, and no gambling-specific onboarding timeline is published, so licensed operators should budget longer for KYB.
Products & tools
One regulated stack carries the offer: the Malta and UK entities put acquiring and the TRU Connect gateway in a single contract, with card push payouts, fraud screening, and the ProbH gambling-harm score layered on top.
Acquiring & TRU Connect Gateway
The core proposition: a principal member of Visa and Mastercard in the EU through its MFSA-licensed Malta entity, so merchant account and gateway arrive in one integration instead of a PSP fronting someone else's acquiring.
- Principal member of Visa and Mastercard in the EU via Trust Payments (Malta) Ltd, an MFSA-licensed financial institution since 2012
- Gateway and merchant account in one stack, with the regulated FI able to offer many bank-like services
- 50+ processing currencies on the gaming stack, with settlement in 14 currencies (Jul 2026)
- Full API integration or a brand-customizable, multi-language hosted payment page, plus shopping-cart plugins (BigCommerce, Magento)
- Chargeback management bundled with acquiring, and fraud management included as standard on gaming accounts
- EU PCI Compliance Certificate and Cyber Essentials, with hosted pages reducing merchant PCI scope
Payouts: Visa Direct & Mastercard Send
Push payments to cards running 24/7/365, with funds transferred in real time within 30 minutes and often quicker, and paying out gaming winnings named as an explicit use case.
- Visa Direct and Mastercard Send push payments, 24/7/365 including weekends and holidays
- Funds transferred in real time within 30 minutes, often quicker (Jul 2026)
- The mechanics are spelled out: settlestatus is set to settled immediately, funds typically arrive under 30 minutes
- Gaming winnings named as an explicit payout use case
- Refunds in around 2 hours via Visa Direct, and wallet payouts (Apple Pay, Google Wallet) cited in the Winbet rollout
ProbH Gambling Harm Detection
An ML product scoring each customer's probability of gambling harm from 0 to 100%, built by the in-house data science team and sold to operators as an API, a genuinely unusual thing for a card acquirer to ship.
- Probability-of-harm score from 0 to 100% per customer, returned sub-second via API endpoint or the Trust Payments interface
- Trained on 50M+ gambling transactions plus data from a dozen debt restructuring agencies (Jul 2026)
- Use cases across the lifecycle: new-account checks, wallet loads, authorization decisions, and ongoing monitoring
- Positive feedback from the Malta Gaming Authority
- Invented by Jan Vorjohann, the company's Head of Data Science
The history
Sales decks get rewritten for every deal. A dated record doesn't.
The lineage starts in 1997, when Secure Trading launched in Bangor, North Wales as one of the first independent UK internet payment providers, serving online gambling among its high-risk verticals. UC Group acquired it in June 1999. The Malta arm has been MFSA-licensed since 2012 and traded as acquiring.com from 2014. On May 8, 2019, a group of investment partners coordinated by CORDET Capital Partners acquired and recapitalized the Secure Trading Group, renaming it Trust Payments, with the Malta entity rebranded in 2020 and the UK entity FCA-authorized in April 2021. Laurence Booth, a 20-year American Express veteran who joined in 2021, became Group CEO in November 2024 after Daniel Holden's departure.
Brands & clients on the platform
Corporate
Leadership
Milestones
- 1997
Secure Trading launches in Bangor, North Wales, one of the first independent UK internet PSPs, with online gambling among its early high-risk verticals.
- 2012
The Malta entity takes its MFSA financial-institution license, the foundation of today's EU acquiring, trading from 2014 as acquiring.com.
- 2019
A CORDET-coordinated investor group acquires and recapitalizes the Secure Trading Group (May 8). The business is renamed Trust Payments, with Trust Payments Holdings Ltd as the holding entity.
- 2021
TrustUK Payments Ltd is authorized by the FCA as a payment institution (FRN 932557, April).
- 2024
ONJN Class 2 payment-processing license takes effect in Romania (January). Laurence Booth moves from interim to permanent Group CEO (November 15) after Daniel Holden's exit.
- 2025
Viva Games Romania goes public as a client (October 8), citing a ~93% approval rate as of end-August and the ONJN Class 2 license behind the deal.
- 2026
FY2024 consolidated accounts filed (January 7). Best Multi-Platform Payments Solution won at the Crypto Expo Europe Awards in Bucharest (March 2). Winbet Bulgaria PR (June 26). BetGoodwin signs an 8-year renewal (July 3).
Where they're pushing next
- Romania (ONJN Class 2 effective Jan 2024, Viva Games live)
- Bulgaria (Winbet since 2022, PR refreshed Jun 2026)
- Crypto-business fiat ramps, around 100 exchange merchants
Awards & recognition
Longevity and ownership
Switching vendors is expensive, which makes the company's staying power part of the purchase. What the contract says about your data decides how expensive an exit gets.
Trust Payments vs alternatives
No two vendors describe themselves the same way, which makes their own claims hard to line up. Every name here answers the same fields, so you can see where this one sits against the closest alternatives.
| Attribute | Trust Payments | emerchantpay | Nuvei | Paysafe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1997 | 2002 | 2003 | 1996 |
| Team | 412+ | 384+ | 2,202+ | 3,300+ |
| US market | Restricted | Restricted | Available | Available |
| Pricing | On request | On request | Not published | On request |
| Methods | 27+ | 50+ | 700+ | 250+ |
| Currencies | 100+ | 150+ | 150+ | 40+ |
| Coins | 0+ | 0+ | 40+ | — |
| EMI / PI licenses | UK, Malta | UK, Lithuania | Cyprus, UK, Netherlands +3 | UK, Ireland +2 |
| Settlement | Flexible, merchant-selected settlement terms with no public T+n | On request: no T+n schedule is published anywhere on the site | Not published | Not published |
| Instant payouts | Yes | — | Yes | Yes |
The take: emerchantpay is the closest shape, another UK-regulated acquirer with its own gateway and an open gambling practice, and the two compete on payout rails and merchant service. Nuvei and Paysafe operate a tier up, with US state approvals, LatAm reach, and method counts Trust Payments cannot match. Pick Trust Payments when your traffic is UK and EU licensed, sub-30-minute card payouts and the ProbH harm layer earn their place, and a shorter methods list from one regulated counterparty beats a broader stack from a bigger vendor.
Settlement & commercials
Trust Payments prices per deal, so exact figures land in the contract rather than on a public rate card.
Custom-quoted merchant pricing with nothing numeric public.
Pricing is on request across the board. What is public: fraud management included as standard on gaming accounts, chargeback management bundled with acquiring, flexible merchant-selected settlement in 14 currencies, and an 8-year flagship contract with BetGoodwin announced July 2026. No setup fees, minimums, rolling-reserve terms, or rate ranges are published anywhere.
The deal
Money movement
Onboarding path
- 1Contact the gaming sales desk for a custom quote, since no pricing is public and the stated posture is EU-incorporated licensed gaming operators only
- 2Pass KYB and underwriting with the right entity: TrustUK Payments Ltd (FCA) for UK traffic, Trust Payments (Malta) Ltd (MFSA) for EU/EEA acquiring, and expect longer than the standard 48-hour underwriting figure for a gambling merchant
- 3Contract the combined merchant account and gateway, and agree settlement currencies (14 available) and payout terms up front, since none of this is published
- 4Integrate TRU Connect via the Webservices API or drop in the hosted payment page, and pick methods from the card, wallet, and European APM list
- 5Configure TRU Fraud Check rules, BIN and country blocks, and the ProbH harm score if you want the RG layer
- 6Enable Visa Direct and Mastercard Send payouts for player withdrawals and go live with the gaming-specialist account manager assigned
Support & account management
You can't demo service before you sign, so what a vendor puts in writing is the only floor you can hold it to.
Frequently asked
The things operators actually ask before signing.
Is Trust Payments licensed to process gambling payments?+
It holds financial licenses on both sides of the Channel plus one gambling-specific entry. TrustUK Payments Ltd is an FCA Authorised Payment Institution (FRN 932557), Trust Payments (Malta) Ltd has been MFSA-licensed as a financial institution since 2012 and is a Visa and Mastercard principal member passported across 30 EU/EEA countries, and an ONJN Class 2 payment-processing license, effective January 2024, covers Romania-licensed operators.
Which gambling operators actually use Trust Payments?+
Three are named and current. BetGoodwin, a UKGC sportsbook and casino, has been processing with the company since 2017 and re-signed on an 8-year deal announced July 3, 2026. Winbet, a licensed Bulgarian casino and sportsbook, has been on board since June 2022. Romania's Viva Games cited a roughly 93% approval rate as of end-August 2025. SOFTSWISS also names Trust Payments as its payment gateway partner at platform level. It is a real, fresh roster, just a short one next to the enterprise acquirers.
How fast can players get their winnings?+
Typically under 30 minutes, on both the payouts page and the technical help docs, using Visa Direct and Mastercard Send push payments that run 24/7/365 including weekends. Gaming winnings are an explicit use case, and the Winbet rollout added wallet payouts through Apple Pay and Google Wallet. The limit to remember: these rails reach cards and linked wallets only, with no crypto or cash payout option.
What is ProbH, the gambling-harm tool?+
A machine-learning product that scores each customer's probability of gambling harm from 0 to 100%, returned sub-second through an API or the merchant interface, for use at sign-up, on wallet loads, at authorization, and in ongoing monitoring. It was trained on 50M+ gambling transactions plus data from a dozen debt restructuring agencies and has drawn positive feedback from the Malta Gaming Authority. As a payments-side affordability signal it is something no rival card acquirer currently sells.
What does Trust Payments cost?+
Nothing is published: no processing rates, setup fees, monthly minimums, rolling-reserve terms, or settlement schedules exist anywhere. The one hard commercial datapoint is contract length: BetGoodwin signed for 8 years. Come to the sales call with reserve and settlement terms at the top of your list.
Who owns Trust Payments and who runs it?+
A private-equity investor group has owned it since May 8, 2019, when CORDET Capital Partners coordinated the acquisition of the Secure Trading Group. Trust Payments Holdings Ltd is the sole controlling shareholder, with the individual investors unnamed. Laurence Booth, formerly of American Express and the company's CIO, has been Group CEO since November 15, 2024, with CORDET co-founder Jakob Lindquist chairing the board. The one CEO change (Daniel Holden out in late 2024) was an internal succession, and leadership has been stable since.