When it comes to international trades and transactions, international payment methods are necessary for you to take them into consideration. Cross-border payments cannot realize without payment gateways. You may be confused about payment gateways. This article will explain its concept as well as some basic information, lists several cases for your reference and gives some tips to tell you how to choose a payment gateway.
What are International Payment Gateways?
An international payment gateway refers to an application program or a technology that connects the financial network system of a bank with the internet or business websites. It can be a server appliance operated by a bank to transfer data from the Internet into internal data of financial institutions; the bank can authorize or refuse any credit card payments of customers.
It can also be a third party on commission to process payment messages and instructions. It can use other payment methods to make a deal directly, like paper checks and debit cards, or offer payment methods of multiple currencies to some businesses and interfaces in multiple languages.
What do International Payment Gateways Do？
- Transfer and analyze data and information from customers
- Help sellers verify the reliability of money as well as customers
- Make different payment systems run stably
- Protect payment and transaction information
- Make payments between different systems more conveniently
International payment gateways are responsible for dealing with payment transactions between two different payment systems. It can help merchants receive money from different regions or countries and convert different currencies.
Precisely, it gets and transfers relevant data on payments from customers to sellers, and delivers the feedback of sellers, “accept” or “refuse” to the customer. The gateway would verify the cards’ detailed information of customers to ensure money available in the card so that payments can be realized.
The core of payment gateways is that they can encrypt bank cards and payment information of customers. Payment gateways, as the intermediary between merchants and customers, need to ensure transactions going and finishing safe and quickly; the gateways can simplify this process and manage sensitive detail information of sellers and buyers.
It makes different payment systems run stably and enables online payments between different countries or regions more conveniently.
In other words, even if you don’t have a website to finish international payments, you can choose payment gateways to deliver the invoice to receivers, and they can use bank accounts or credit cards to pay.
What Factors Should be Considered to Choose a Payment Gateway?
- Safety and reliability
- Service charge fees
- Covering countries and regions
- Compatibility
- Customer experience
- Ease of use degree
When you choose a payment gateway or relevant service provider, you should consider several necessary factors to ensure your money is safe.
First, the safety and reliability of a payment gateway is the most important thing to focus on. If the gateway cannot protect the privacy of your transaction and customers’ information, you would get into trouble even after your transaction is finished.
Second, you should consider the service charge of a payment gateway. Most gateway providers are not charitable organizations, for they also need maintenance and running costs. You should choose one which charge fees are reasonable for you to accept.
Third, you should consider the factor that how many countries the payment gateway can cover. Usually, the more countries and regions a payment gateway can cover, the better the gateway is and the larger your business market can realize.
Forth, compatibility should be taken into account as well. In most cases, payment gateways are used for online payment, so their compatibility with online shop websites is a key part.
Last, customer experience should be considered. Payment gateways are born for convenient transactions; their ease of use can help sellers attract customers as well.
List of Some International Payment Gateways
With the development of globalization and international trades, different payment gateways or service providers have emerged endlessly. For one thing, it is a good thing for many businesses that they have more choices to consider a suitable payment gateway to developing their international trades.
For another, it may be confused for most small businesses without too much experience to select one, so they may be defrauded easily.
This article will list several international payment gateways with good reception and abundant experience for reference, especially for small businesses or new beginners who have never known about international payment gateways.
Attention: All the payment gateways listed in this article are just for your reference. You need to further deliberate and decide whether they are the right ones if you want to cooperate with them.
1. PayPal
PayPal is a large online payment service provider for worldwide payment deals, which is fast, safe and easy to use. It is widely used as an electronic payment gateway domestic and overseas.
Before using it to transfer money, you should log in to an account with your email address and bank information. After login in, users can transfer the money only through an email address provided by the receiver. This method helps protect privacies of bank and users, and users can choose to keep money in the account or transfer into their bank accounts.
For a large number of payments, payers can receive and send invoices through the website, which protects the financial information of their customers. Many large companies prefer to choose it to complete their payments. The process of monetary accounting is short.
For international payments, payers need to convert their currencies and pay some charges, so sometimes the fees may be high.
Some cost data are in the below table.
| Where sender’s market/region is | Fees |
| Canada&US | 2.00% |
| Europe Ⅰ | 0.50% |
| Europe Ⅱ | 2.00% |
| Northern Europe | 0.50% |
| Rest of the world | 2.00% |
Fees standards are different for different service terms, and you can get more information on its official website.
Features
- No fixed contract fees, you can pay as you go
- Ease of use, available in most countries
- Available for different groups of users in various demands
- Standard prices for accounts are fair
- Fees for processing payments may be higher
- Not available for ACH payments
If you want to know more about PayPal, you can read another article on our website：
2. Authorize.Net
Authorize.Net is a professional and experience international payment gateway provider. It can be used in more than 30 countries. You can trust this gateway because it has a long history. Its gateway service is functional and has multiple extensions.
Authorize.Net can accept different payment methods, but it accepts international transactions of businesses only in the USA, UK, Canada, Europe and Australia. So it may be not available for businesses in other countries or regions.
If you want to use Authorize.Net, you need to sign up for an account first, and there are three ways to applicate an account according to your real conditions. It also needs to charge certain fees, and sometimes it can provide you with a good discount for using it.
Some cost data are in the below table, and you can have a basic understanding.
| Recommended: All-in-One option (If you don’t have a merchant account) | Payment Gateway Only (If you already have a merchant account) |
| No setup fee | No setup fee |
| Monthly gateway: $25 | Monthly gateway: $25 |
| Per transaction 2.9%+30$ | Per transaction 10$, daily batch fee 10$ |
Its charged terms are different according to your demands. You can get more information on its official website.
Features
- Available for multiple payment currencies and methods
- Ensure safety and prevent fraud payments or refunds
- Different service terms for your various demands
- Monthly billing without long-term contracts for bundling sales
- Some prices or fees are expensive for some small merchants
- Fees for optional merchant accounts may be in high rates
- The process of data transmission may be difficult and cost high
3. 2Checkout
2 Checkout focuses on providing online and e-commerce payment services to help its customers sell their products as well as services in various ways. Many famous companies cooperate with 2Checkout, including HP Software, ABBYY and so on.
It can also provide other services to help deal with international businesses covering more than 200 countries. It also supports credit cards from different countries or regions.
But this gateway may charge a little bit high for many small businesses. Meanwhile, it was bought by another company, so its service range may change in the future. You can find more information on its official website.
Some cost data are in the below table, and you can have a basic understanding.
| Plans&Solutions | Fees |
| 2 Sell (easy and simple way to sell globally) | 3.5%+$0.35 per successful sale |
| 2 Subscribe (develop&boost your subscription business) | 4.5%+$0.45 per successful sale |
| 2 Monetize (all in one solution to sell digital goods globally) | 6.0%+$0.6 per successful sale |
Fees standards are different for different service terms, and you can get more information on its official website.
Features
- Available for multiple payment currencies in mainstream countries
- Monthly billing without long-term contracts for bundling sales
- Charges are predictable and stable
- Reports of held funds in a high frequency
- Not available for transactions through bank cards
- Merchants of high risk are not available to use it
4. Stripe
Stripe is a payment gateway provider located in the US, which is a third party to be specialized in the e-commerce business. It is widely used in more than 25 countries, but it is mainly used in UK, Canada and Australia.
This gateway can support all the credit cards and integrates with processing services. It can provide some free service items, but also need to charge certain fees. Its charges are according to your programs and demands without fixed pricing.
However, its advantage is that it would block your accounts without any warning, if your funds or revenues are unbalanced or change in great fluctuation. In this way, it may not be the right one for you.
Some cost data are in the below table, and you can have a basic understanding.
| Payments | Fees |
| Cards and wallets | 2.9%+30$ |
| Bank debits and transfers | 0.8% |
| Additional payment methods | Starting at 80$ |
| 3D Secure authentication | 3$ per 3D Secure attempt for accounts with custom pricing. |
| Card account updater | 25$ per update for accounts with custom pricing. |
Its charged terms are different according to your demands. You can get more information in its official website.
Features
- Monthly billing without long-term contracts for bundling sales
- No fixed contract fees, you can pay as you go
- Available for different payment methods
- Fees for processing payments may be higher
- Potential risks in holding funds or terminating your accounts without any warning
5. WePay
WePay, founded in 2008, is an international payment gateway, which is similar to Stripe. It can provide payment services like most payment gateways, which help customers and sellers transfer money more conveniently from most credit cards and payment platforms.
If you want to use this gateway, you need to sign up for your own account and it can provide some customized payment services as well. It requires payment service fees according to your transfer amount and business requirements without other extra fees.
However, it also has some disadvantages in that its payment choices and countries are limited. It does not give relevant prices on its official website. According to some researches, it shows that its rates are 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.
Some cost data are in the below table, and you can have a basic understanding.
| Service items | Fees |
| Accept credit card payments | 2.95+30￠ |
| Sending invoices | Free |
| Processing ACH payments | 1%+$0.3 |
| Setup fees | Free |
You need to check your region or country on its official website if you have the intention to choose it.
Features
- Multi-channels for payments to process different payment requests
- Available for customizing special payment processes according to sellers’ demands
- Ease of use to accept all main payment methods
- Limited in payment choices and countries
- Only available for supporting by email
- Concrete fees of services and payments are not clear on its official website
6. Amazon Payment
Amazon payment is an online payment service belonging to Amazon. It provides a specific payment way between buyers and sellers with their Amazon accounts. It is a kind of international payment providing a solution for shopping platforms. It can be used in most countries, but it is only limited to the Amazon platform for customers.
Some cost data are in the below table, and you can have a basic understanding.
| Payments | Fees |
| For domestic US transactions | 2.9% processing fee+$0.30 authorization fee |
| For cross-border transactions | 3.9% processing fee+$0.30 authorization fee |
| Chargeback fee | $20 per incidence |
Its charged terms are different according to your demands. You can get more information on its official website.
Features
- Support for multiple currencies during the shopping process
- Help customers prevent extra conversion charges from their banks or card issuers
- Payment is available for WooCommerce in many mainstream countries
- Protecting payments and privacy to prevent some fraud refunds
- Usually available for retail business but not for wholesale or large business
- Promise extra services in delivery and products quality
7. Braintree
Braintree is a branch of PayPal and a traditional account provider, which focuses on e-commerce and provides free payment gateway services for merchants. It can prevent you from being defrauded and protect your payment and cards information.
This gateway provider can cover many countries to make transactions, including the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, Malaysia and other regions. Its available currencies are various and it charges a 1% fee of the funds.
It can provide various services as third-party integration, so if you only need its payment gateway service, the cost performance may not be quite ideal. You can get more information on its official website.
Features
- No fixed contract fees, you can pay as you go
- Ease of use, available in most countries
- Data transmission is easy to realize
- Fees for processing payments may be higher
- Available in several mainstream countries of Europe, North America and Southeast Asia
8. Alipay
Alipay is a new payment gateway in international trade. It is the third party to provide the service of transferring money. Before using it, users need to login to an account and relate their bank accounts so that there are funds to use. In most cases, Alipay is used in online platforms to make deals of a small amount. If you want to make mass funds, it may be limited.
Features
- Only available for Chinese ID to make transactions through the app
- Fees are charged 1% per transfer
- The maximum amount of transaction is only 30,000 RMB, available for two transfers with a maximum total of 60,000 RMB
- Chinese accounts are limited to transfer overseas annually for the maximum of 50,000 USD
9. ACH
ACH mainly includes global ACH and ACH in the USA.
Global ACH, also called international ACH, helps several countries around the world make electronic money transfer bank to bank. The currency it uses is the local currency of the receiver. In other words, it is sometimes regarded as local bank transfers. It can be very fast in account and ensure the security of money transferring.
However, in most cases, ACH is used widely in the USA. It is very convenient for transferring money in banks of the US, most countries and regions in Europe. It may be limited to different bank systems in other countries, so it may not be quite friendly to other bank accounts.
Features
- ACH costs lowly compared to other traditional bank transfers
- Anyone owning an American bank account can use ACH while without an account can do nothing
- Total costs of accepting ACH payments are various based on numerous factors
- ACH can keep accounts of customers and improve account retention
The End
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You can find more information about payment in my posts:
- What is Telegraphic Transfer?
- Import L/C and Export L/C
- International Payment processes
- How to Send Money to China for Lowest Cost
We’re Jingsourcing, a leading sourcing agent in China. If you want to start international trades but without any experience, please CONTACT US without hesitation!
