On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe Payment processor Stripe has been in the media spotlight since it raised $80 million in Series C funding less than a month ago.

Stripe multi-currency processing functionality On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe:

And rightfully so—the startup has been valued at a whopping $1.75 billion. I’ll admit that I’m completely overwhelmed by the news – so much so that I haven’t even blogged about it.

The reason I was speechless was that I took a close look at Stripe back in October 2012, when the startup first started gaining media attention — and I didn’t exactly find anything new about it.

Once you got past the colorful language Stripe used to promote its product and some patently false statements (“[you] don’t need a merchant account or a gateway”), you found that the startup was offering exactly the kind of business its founders told us their company decided to replace: the garden variety commercial account with all its limitations and disadvantages. And it still is On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Still, despite all my concerns, Stripe is reportedly doing quite well and growing very quickly. However, the latest wave of media attention was sparked by the announcement that the processor now allows its users to accept payments in “more than 130 currencies On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

” Now that’s really interesting, especially if the startup made this feature as easy to implement on their clients’ websites as they claim, although the startup still managed to misrepresent what it was doing. Multi-currency support is a topic we’ve neglected on this blog, but it’s a feature highly valued by international traders. So I think it’s about time we covered some multi-currency ground On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

The startup won’t tell us much about the new feature it’s adding. Basically, all we learned was that Stripe users can now “accept over 130 currencies,” “from Euros to US Dollars, Algerian Dinar to Chinese Renminbi.”

The rest is just standard old fashioned PR standard, things like:

Built-in multi-currency support is another example of how Stripe helps businesses scale faster and more efficiently.

And like:

In keeping with Stripe’s ethos of simplicity and developer friendliness, multicurrency is a standard feature and requires no additional work to integrate. A currency feature that used to be a quagmire of paperwork and integration work can now be implemented in minutes On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

If the guys at Stripe really want to be behind some new way of processing credit card payments and such, it seems to me that dropping such mind-numbing PR language could only help them, or at least it couldn’t hurt. For example, they could have told us instead how much this newly supported service would cost, but there’s no mention of that.

 

As it was, I had to contact GigaOm to learn that Stripe “will add an additional 2% processing fee for each foreign currency transaction.” But let me focus on a more interesting point: why multi-currency processing is needed at all On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Why do we need multi-currency processing?

So if your business has set up a merchant account that allows you to accept, for example, Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards, you can accept any card that bears the logos of these two payment networks, regardless of where or by whom the cards were issued and what is your customer’s home currency.

If the standard way of processing cross-border card transactions applies, whenever you take a foreign-issued card to pay, the transaction will be settled in your own billing currency, but you will be charged some kind of cross-border fee (typically 0.5 percent or so) applied to the transaction amount On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

in addition to the respective processing speed. Your customer will be charged a currency conversion fee by the card issuer (in the US these fees are typically 2-3 percent, although more and more issuers are waiving them altogether). So you can see how cross-border fees can add up quickly On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

But quite apart from the increased transaction costs, the standard way of processing cross-border transactions can discourage potential customers from shopping on your website. And for many merchants, that’s a bigger concern, and it’s exactly the kind of challenge that multi-currency payment processing wants to overcome On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

It achieves this goal by giving your website visitors the option to pay in their own currency, not your (merchant’s) billing currency. That way, your customers know exactly how much they’re paying for whatever you’re selling, and don’t have to worry about things like currency conversion fees. As far as you are concerned, not much has changed: you still pay an extra fee as you would if you stuck to the standard cross-border processing model, but you keep your customers happy.

And here we come back to the perfect example of the Stripe PR swatch:

Traditional merchant banks present significant barriers to entry for new companies – and significant friction for existing ones. Stripe’s API, payment connectivity and rapidly growing global reach replace the complex matrix of bank accounts, gateways and subscription managers. Stripe handles the heavy lifting of payments—from credit card storage to fraud detection—and lets companies get back to building On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

So Stripe tells us that it does absolutely everything related to transactions, even replacing those “traditional merchant banks”. The reality, as some of you may have guessed, is quite different and more prosaic. As Stripe’s gargantuan terms and conditions make clear, “Stripe is not a bank or money services business (“MSB”), and Stripe does not offer banking services or MSB services as defined by the United States Treasury Department. And the thing is, only banks and “money services businesses” can actually move money On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe. In the case of Stripe, this is done in the US by Wells Fargo, which is a start-up merchant bank On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

What I mean is that Stripe’s multi-currency processing feature is only enabled by processor bank partners, which is also the case here at UniBul. We also offer multi-currency processing and settlement, but don’t pretend we destroyed the old world order to make this possible.

Takeaway

In my original analysis of Stripe’s services, I concluded that the processor only offers a “garden-variety, low-risk type of merchant account that directly positions it in a notoriously crowded and competitive market On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.” Still, the start-up’s valuation seems to belie my prediction that it will “not come close to becoming a square for e-commerce businesses.” Well, I’m happy for them, and if the start-up’s multi-currency feature works half as well as advertised, they’ll surely find more love among international traders (though.

You may be wondering when you should use multiple Stripe accounts, here are some helpful tips. Note that you cannot use one Stripe account across multiple NetSuite branches (this is a NetSuite limitation).

Configure foreign currencies with a bar
There are two main ways to use Stripe with foreign currencies On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe:

Bill in foreign currencies from a single Stripe account and let Stripe transfer the payment to your clearing bank’s currency.
Create multiple Stripe accounts connected to different subsidiaries of your companies. Connect different clearing accounts to these Stripe accounts, one for each currency you charge. Stripe will create a bank deposit for each billing currency in each Stripe account to avoid currency conversion fees.
Option #1 is much easier to set up, manage and maintain. Option #2 provides an opportunity to manage FX risk on your end and eliminate Stripe’s currency conversion fees On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

For more information, see Stripe’s currency conversion documentation.

Customers
A currency must be added to a NetSuite customer before it can be used in NetSuite. SuiteSync will add all active NetSuite currencies to the NetSuite customer if multiple currencies are used in Stripe.

Here is where the currencies are added to the NetSuite customer record On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe:

NetSuite Customer Currencies

Please note that automatically adding all NetSuite currencies to a NetSuite customer is an optional feature. If you manage the customer creation process outside of SuiteSync, you may need to add active currencies to the NetSuite customer on your end.

If you haven’t added the correct currencies to your NetSuite customers, SuiteSync can do it for you. For example, Celigo or FarApp can create a customer with only USD and later that customer can make a payment in EUR. In this case, NetSuite will return an error indicating that EUR is not available for that customer. SuiteSync detects this case and automatically adds all available currencies to the NetSuite customer On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Fees and Refunds
NetSuite’s payment or refund currency is chosen to match Stripe’s payment currency. If the currency of the fee is not the same as the currency of the relevant payout (also known as a deposit or batch payment), the amount of the converted currency is shown on the deposit.

Here is an example of a foreign currency payment in Stripe:

NetSuite Customer Currencies

The red box is the currency that is presented to the customer. The yellow box is the amount you’ll receive in your payout from Stripe (minus processing and currency conversion fees). In other words, the amount in the red box is the amount on your NetSuite payment or refund, and the amount in the yellow box is the amount in the converted currency specified in the bank deposit in NetSuite (see below for details on how this looks in NetSuite) On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

If the Stripe payment currency does not exist in the NetSuite account, the payment will not be transferred until the currency is created in NetSuite. At NetSuite, we don’t create currencies for you; you will need to ensure that the appropriate currencies exist in your NetSuite account On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Transaction exchange rate
When a payment or refund is made, Stripe sends us the exact exchange rate used in the transaction. In other words, Stripe immediately knows the exchange rate at which the payment will settle. Instead of using the exchange rate generated by NetSuite, the integration determines the exchange rate from Stripe. This eliminates FX (foreign exchange) gains or losses that would normally be posted to your GL when a transaction is reconciled to a bank deposit.

Here’s how SuiteSync determines the exchange rate On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe:

Customer Payments and Customer Deposits
Credit Note and Customer Refund – A refund or dispute generally creates both a credit note and a customer refund. The exchange rate from Stripe is shown on both of these NetSuite records.
Here is the exchange rate On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe:

NetSuite exchange rate

Invoices (subscriptions)
When using a Stripe subscription, SuiteSync creates invoices every billing period (or more often if you use manual Stripe invoices).

Stripe does not generate an exchange rate for these invoices, so we do not set an exchange rate in NetSuite. Instead, the NetSuite generated rate will be used for those invoices created with SuiteSync On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Exchange rate and subsidiary currencies
If you have multiple branches in NetSuite, currency exchange rates must be considered On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

The exchange rate in NetSuite is relative to the subsidiary’s currency. For example, if you have a NetSuite transaction in USD and the subsidiary currency is EUR, the transaction exchange rate is USD > EUR. However, if a USD transaction is settled in GBP in Stripe, if the subsidiary is a EUR transaction, the exchange rate in NetSuite represents a USD > EUR conversion On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

If your billing currency is different from the currency of the NetSuite subsidiary (as in the example above), the Stripe exchange rate will not be transferred to NetSuite. Unfortunately, NetSuite does not support specifying an exchange rate for a currency that is not the subsidiary’s base currency, so we cannot transfer the exchange rate from Stripe to NetSuite On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Withdrawals (Deposits)
A NetSuite bank account is associated with a currency. Unlike payments and refunds, NetSuite Deposit does not have direct currency settings. The NetSuite deposit currency is determined based on which bank account the deposit is posted to On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

When a Stripe payment is sent to NetSuite, a deposit is created.

The bank account for the deposit is chosen based on the currency of the transfer. If your NetSuite account has multiple bank accounts for a given currency in NetSuite, you can customize which bank account is selected for a specific currency.

For example, if Stripe entered a €75 charge as $100, you’ll see the following records in NetSuite:

NetSuite CustomerPayment with currency EUR and payment amount 75.
A NetSuite deposit associated with a EUR bank account and a Deposits > Payment item containing a CustomerPayment payment amount set to 100 On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.
In the deposit below, you will notice that you can enter the deposit amount for payment or refund if the currency is different from the currency of the bank account. SuiteSync will insert the converted currency amount specified by Stripe into this field (as shown in the Stripe screenshot above) On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe:

Deposits in multiple currencies

Multiple checking accounts
By default, Stripe converts all multi-currency charges to your account’s “base” currency. However, in many cases you may choose to link paying bank accounts in different currencies to avoid the currency conversion fee and manage the FX risk yourself On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Which billing currencies are supported depends on the country of the legal entity associated with your Stripe account. Here you can determine which billing currencies are available in your Stripe account.

Rob Keating
Written
Rob Keating
Last modified February 2023 – 7 min read

Content

What is an international payment gateway?
The best payment gateways for international payments
International bank payment vs card payments
What is the best international payment gateway for my business?
The top 10 international payment gateways will vary for each business depending on their goals and requirements. International payment systems offer a range of features aimed at specific types of businesses and use cases. Most international payment gateways focus on card payments, but withdrawing funds through international bank payments has its advantages and is becoming increasingly popular On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

If you need to collect international payments in your business, you will need to start using an international payment gateway or a provider that offers cross-border payments. But with so many different options to choose from, it can be difficult to know which international payment gateway provider to work with.

You should also consider how to collect international payments. How exactly you collect payments will affect not only your bottom line, but also the efficiency and productivity of your finance team. The aim is to collect cross-border payments in a cost-effective way, in a way that will suit international customers and which results in a minimum of manual administration On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Find out everything you need to know about the best international payment gateways and international direct debit payment methods right here On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

What is an international payment gateway?

A payment gateway is a tool that businesses use to confirm their customers’ credit and debit card details, which is vital for offline or online companies that authorize credit/debit card payments. Even if you have a payment processor and a merchant account – two of the key pieces of software required to process card transactions – you won’t be able to accept payment if you don’t have a payment gateway On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Fortunately, many providers offer all-in-one solutions. So what is an international payment gateway? Simple. Businesses that accept international payments will need a type of payment gateway that offers global/multi-currency payments as well as a multi-language interface, otherwise known as an international payment gateway.

Local payment collection methods
In addition to discussing payment gateways, we’ll also look at different international payment collection options. Card payments are a common option for most businesses, but they have some issues and limitations. An alternative is to make local payment methods available when collecting international payments. With 76% of international consumers preferring to pay in local currencies, it reduces friction for end users, reduces payment failure rates for merchants and is proven to increase sales locally On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

The best payment gateways for international payments
Now that you know what an international online payment gateway is, it’s important to understand your options. Here is our overview of the best international payment gateway providers available to UK businesses:

PayPal
Home PayPal is one of the most trusted options for selling online. It’s very easy to set up (which is a great choice for small businesses and startups), and with a high level of name recognition, PayPal can help your business instill confidence in potential buyers.

Additionally, PayPal is available in over 200 countries/territories and supports 25 currencies, making it a truly global option for businesses looking for an international payment gateway provider.

Cost can be a big factor in deciding which payment provider to go with, but it’s not always easy to compare because there are several price tiers and options On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

For example, PayPal charges different fees for transfers between two PayPal accounts than for a card-to-PayPal transaction. Fees may also vary depending on which currencies are exchanged. As a result, PayPal offers links to 16 different information about its fees, but expect to pay around a 3% currency conversion fee, plus a transaction fee of up to 5% for cross-border transactions On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Worldpay
Worldpay is an all-in-one payment processor that helps you process credit card payments directly from your app or website. It is one of the most used international payment gateways in the UK and offers support for over 40 countries and 120 currencies, making it easy to accept payments from customers around the world.

However, be aware that Worldpay requires relatively long contracts – three years with automatic rollover – and may charge early termination fees if you choose to close your account early. In addition, pricing is not clear and transparent, with both monthly fees and pay-as-you-go options available but not clearly stated On Multi-Currency Credit Card Processing and Stripe.

Opayo
Opayo (formerly SagePay) offers three service levels – Flex, Plus and Corporate – depending on your business requirements. Opayo can process payments in multiple currencies and allows you to accept credit/debit card payments from all major card companies.

Like WorldPay, Opayo offers a monthly fee option, but also does not offer price transparency on its website, making it difficult to compare with other providers.

Braintree
Braintree is owned by PayPal, but they operate in very different ways. In short, Braintree provides individual trading accounts that allow you to process transactions. With coverage of more than 45 countries/regions, it can be an excellent choice for companies in the international payment gateway market.

Pricing is quite complicated with a basic 1.9% + 20p per transaction but an additional 1% for withdrawals from non-UK issued cards and different rates for ‘scheme’ and ‘exotic’ currencies.

Strip
Stripe, unlike many other international payment gateway providers, offers payment gateways in a range of APIs. This means you will be in full control and can easily integrate your new payment gateway into your online store. In addition, Stripe accepts payments in more than 135 currencies and offers extensive support for local payments.

Stripe provides a good choice for online stores and e-commerce businesses that need instant payments. However, they only accept card payments and thus do not offer consumers their own local payment methods. While card payments are popular, they suffer from high error rates and high transaction fees, making them not always the best choice for every business.

Amazon Pay
Amazon Pay, while a relatively new addition to the payment scene, is still a great choice for anyone looking for an international payment gateway with minimal fees and a simple interface. Additionally, it offers extensive multi-currency options and provides your business with the perfect platform from which to expand internationally.

Prices are on the expensive side with a base of 2.7% + 30p per transaction, with a cross-border surcharge.

                             Sources