Whether your business offers a product or a service, markets these days are global so you need to be able to accept multiple currencies, including US dollars.
Before we crack on, a few definitions.
Payment system: A mechanism for transferring cash. As you’re collecting US dollars in this case, these will be online.
Presentment currency: The currency that the customer pays you in.
Settlement currency: The currency accepted by your account.
Here’s a look at 6 main providers, along with fees and conversion rates.
Airwallex
The Airwallex Global Account is an international collection system that lets you get paid in a foreign currency using the local clearing system as if it were a local payment.
You can use the Airwallex conversion engine and multi-currency wallet along with the Global Account.
Fees: None
Conversion rate: 0.5 per cent
Ideal for: Small businesses who deal with a larger number of multi-currency transactions
GoCardless
GoCardless’s payment processing is flexible, and it works with more than 350 other systems, such as Xero, Salesforce, and Sage. When you use Wise to convert currencies, you’ll always get the real exchange rate.
Fees: 2 per cent + 20p per transaction (conversion rate included); no monthly fee on Standard account
Conversion rate: N/A
Ideal for: Businesses that get a lot of recurring payments
Braintree by PayPal
The difference between PayPal and Braintree is that you can only accept payments through PayPal with PayPal, but you can accept payments through Venmo, Google Pay, and Apple Pay with Braintree.
With Braintree, you can set up a single currency or more than one. If you have a single currency account and someone makes a purchase in their local currency, the bank will convert the amount to GBP based on your bank’s currency conversion rate.
You can choose to show or settle in more than one currency. You can open up more merchant accounts in different currencies if you want to accept more than just US dollars. Braintree has testing environments where people who aren’t sure can try collecting different currencies.
Fees: 1.9 per cent + 20p per transaction + 1.5 per cent multi-currency transaction fee
Conversion rate: In line with bank’s conversion rate
Ideal for: Businesses who want to give customers more payment options.
Wise for Business
Wise for Business says that it is 19 times less expensive than PayPal. For example, if you get $2,000 in GBP, it won’t cost you anything on Wise, but it will cost you £66.88 on PayPal.
Fees: It costs £45 to open an account. Getting USD wire payments through to your account will incur a 4.14 USD charge.
Conversion rate: US dollars are free to receive, though holding limits apply
Ideal for: Freelancers and micro businesses
Stripe
With Stripe, you can show prices in your customers’ preferred currency and accept payments in more than 135 different currencies around the world. If the currency of the charge is different from the currency of the settlement, Stripe changes the charge to the currency of the settlement.
The good news is that you won’t have to pay any set-up, monthly, or hidden fees. But if you want to avoid the conversion rate, you should make more than one settlement account.
Stripe has different balances for each currency, so your US dollars will go to a different balance automatically.
Fees: 1.4% plus 20p for UK cards (1.1% for cards from the European Economic Area) and 2.9% plus 20p for cards from other countries.
Conversion rate: 2 per cent
Ideal for: Online businesses that want to keep their fees as low as possible
Payoneer
With Payoneer, it depends heavily on where your payments are coming from. People can pay you as if you had a local bank account with a local receiving account. You can also accept payments through Payoneer networks for free and get money from Amazon, Wish, Rakuten, and other places.
It lets you manage currencies and move them between balances for a flat fee of 0.5pc.
Fees: As was already said, you can get money from other Payoneer customers and receiving accounts for free. But when you take USD payments directly from your customers, you have to pay 3% for credit cards and 1% for ACH Bank Debit. Fees for payments from marketplaces and networks depend on where the payment came from.
Comnversion rate: Depending on which country it’s coming from, the conversion rate can be free or cost a small amount.
Ideal for: Freelancers and people who offer services, online sellers, digital marketers, and people who rent out their homes for vacations.
