Hi, We are an Australian business. After extensive research, it appears that the only way for an Australian business to charge USD with an Australian payment gateway (e.g. Eway) is to have a multicurrency account with the National Australia Bank, which is an expensive option. My requirement is that I want to bill in USD. I am assuming that getting a US merchant bank account is not a good option. Therefore I believe my best option would be one of the Gateways that provide an integrated payment gateway and internet merchant facility, and which will take non-US clients. As I understand it, they effectively use their merchant account, and then remitt your money to a normal bank account after a delay. The only candidates I have are Paypal Website Payments Pro, 2Checkout and Worldpay. However Paypal WPP doesn't seem to take non-US clients (despite the amember table), Worldpay seems expensive and bureacratic, and there appears to be some issues with 2Checkout not giving a realtime authoritative decision? So to summarise, I am an Australian business that wants to bill in USD. I am looking for a gateway which doesn't require a US merchant account processes in realtime, and where the transaction stays completely within amember Can you please advise what the options are, and any further information or recommendations? Also, has anybody seen another table or matrix which compares the costs of different gateways in more detail?
Hi nandonakis, I am also in the same position as you re the banks. I have been trying to find a good ecommerce system for use in Australia for about 3 years... with no joy. The only way I have founf to use real time payment processing is via Paypal and Clickbank. We have had some problems using "Paypal only" with amember as some of our members on very non-net-savvy so they don't get it why they have to set up a Paypal account etc. Some don't even use email very well! We have had to resort to doing AU$ transactions offline via the eftpos machine for these people in the short term. Anyway I am looking for the same solution as you and hope we can find an answer soon. If you get a solution please let me know. Cheers Mate. Howard
out of options Alex, I believe these are all standard Australian payment gateways, which require you to have your own Australian merchant account. And the problem with Australian merchant accounts is that if you want to charge in USD, the only bank which provides a multicurrency bank account is the National Australia Bank, which is not only expensive, but only allows you to process Mastercard and Visa. i.e. it is difficult for an Australian company to charge USD! A US-based gateway generally requires a US merchant account (though I now understand that maybe there are some US organisations that will provide US merchant accounts to international companies, like Card Services International?). So I was looking for one of the integrated providers (i.e. gateway and merchant account in one), which is integrated with Amember so that the transaction will stay within amember (no redirect to their site). The only one seems to be Paypal Website Payments Pro, but Paypal Australia will not offer that service for at least 2 years, and Paypal US only deals with US companies. Again, out of options. Paymate in Australia seems to be a solution - it offers a similar and competing service to Paypal US WPP i.e. it accepts USD, no merchant account required, services Australian companies, but it is not on your list. Alexander Smith in support indicated that maybe you would be able to integrate this provider soon...there was a post in the forums indicating that this had been done in the past? Your assistance is much appreciated, Nicholas
In The same boat... I share your frustration and I have now reached the point where I am looking outside of aMember to manage my memberships. It would be a shame as I like aMemeber. I think that Paymate is probably the best sollution. I will also send a request to support to integrate Paymate. If anybody is interested, maybe we can get a programmer to do the integration script for us and split the costs? Maybe aMember can sell us a script if free integration is a problem?