you need an SSL certificate anyway - you're not going to be doing much business without.
There is a good contrib that delivers all you need to gather the data you need to capture the information to process UK cards (issue number, start date etc.) and then delete the data post processing. Search for CVV and you'll find it. Sorry, don't remember the name right now.
the email split with CVV works but whether your merchant account provider would be happy with this approach I'm not sure.