*PRE-MARKET ENGAGEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE* Online Payment Solution for The Education Authority

** This is not a tender exercise by the Education Authority**. The Education Authority (EA) is currently preparing to initiate a procurement process to award a contract for an Online Payment Solution. The potential scale and scope of this is such that it offers a significant opportunity to bidders. The purpose of the pre-market consultation exercise is to gain an understanding of the latest developments and innovations in the provision of Online Payments Solutions as well as assisting EA to ensure that the most efficient and effective methods of providing Online Payments are procured. Prior to initiating the procurement, the EA wishes to establish the level of market interest in participating in the procurement process. At this stage, any information gathered through this market consultation exercise may inform internal business planning and any possible subsequent procurement process and will NOT be appraised in any future tender evaluation exercise. Please note that participation or non-participation in this preliminary market consultation exercise shall not prevent any provider participating in any potential procurement process, nor is it intended that any information supplied shall place any provider at an advantage or disadvantage in any forthcoming procurement process. For the avoidance of doubt, this is the scoping phase of the project and is not part of a formal procurement process. Further information including the questionnaire can be downloaded from CfT Documents. The questionnaire must be completed and returned via the Messaging function. There are no formal tender documents to be completed other than the questionnaire.