A well-credentialled Australian payments consultancy is preparing to enter the comparison shopping field, with the launch of a pricing website aimed at online and point-of-sale merchants.Merchant Pricing Hub (www.merchantpricing.com) is the brainchild of Payments Consulting Network, a national financial services advisory company headed by experienced payments industry executive, Mangala Martinus.The website, which is currently under development but viewable on the web, is slated for a hard launch early next year.The service aims to be the first independent shopping site for retailers to compare the pricing of their current bank or payments gateway to that of alternative merchant acquirers.Australian small businesses have traditionally been price-takers of merchant services supplied by the banks because the market segment is widely recognised as having one of the most opaque pricing structures in the payments industry.Martinus believes the service will remove information barriers that currently make it difficult for small and large merchants to research the pricing and features of acquirers' offerings."There's a real lack of knowledge out there about the services and packaged deals that are available, so a big focus of the Merchant Pricing Hub site will be on education," said Martinus."We will be providing comparative information to merchants about in-store and online payments."Unlike retail comparison sites such as Canstar and Mozo, Merchant Pricing Hub will not collect fees for introducing merchants to payments acquirers or gateways.Nor will the service levy a fee on merchant acquirers to have their bundled payments offers listed on the site.The business case for the comparison site will hinge on its ability to generate advisory work for the parent company.Payments Consulting Network, with a client list that includes the likes of ANZ, NAB, Westpac, Bank of Queensland, Cuscal, Bendigo Bank, CUA, RediATM and Cardtronics, is hoping to win mandates from large merchants to help negotiate their merchant service agreements with payments providers.Product and pricing data for the site will be sourced mostly from a database maintained by Payments Consulting Network."I think it's important that merchants understand that selecting the right provider is not only about price," Martinus said."In addition to pricing, the site will also evaluate service offerings in terms of customer service and features, implementation support and the quality of technology that is provided."Merchant Pricing Hub will also operate a star ratings system, which will be based on the judgements of merchants who use the site.Martinus said the response from payments providers to the new site had been positive, particularly from regional banks and payments gateways.