Multi-currency payment gateway: advantages for businesses and comparison of popular services

Have you ever bought something online? Strange question. Obviously, so. And you used a payment gateway, for sure. Today, they are available in the absolute majority of online stores. Now that you're on the other side of the e-commerce world, it's time to integrate the gateway into your online store. And if your business is not limited to your country, then it makes sense to think about a multi-currency payment gateway.

Before answering the question "what is a multi-currency payment gateway", first you need to answer a simpler question: "what is a payment gateway at all".

The payment gateway is a hardware and software complex that ensures the acceptance of payments on the site and the automatic transfer of payment data from customers of the acquiring company. Simply put, it is a bridge between a website and an organization that processes payments (e.g., a bank or electronic money operator).

Unlike a payment system, a gateway does not interact with money. It only performs the function of a connecting link.

Here are some advantages of payment gateways:

• Flexibility of settings for individual business features.
• Savings for business: the entire software and technical part of the process is provided by the gateway.
• Transaction security thanks to modern standards of data encryption.
• Only the acquirer receives the buyer's data. They are not available to the seller or the gateway.

Now let's go straight to multi-currency gateways.

Multi-currency gateways differ from conventional gateways in that they allow you to process payments in different currencies, not just one (which obviously makes sense). This can be useful for companies that work with customers from different countries and want to offer them the option to pay in their national currency.

For example, your company may be registered in the UK, and the local gateway will only accept payment in GBP. But the multi-currency gateway will make it possible to work with clients from the USA, EU and other countries, accepting payment in dollars, euros, etc. This allows you to receive multi-currency payments and helps to expand your customer base.

The multi-currency payment gateway works according to the following principle:

1. The client places an order on the website and goes to the payment page.
2. Enter your bank card details on a secure page.
3. These data, together with information about the payment amount, are encrypted and transmitted through the payment gateway to the processing center.
4. The processing center sends this data to the bank that issued the card and receives information about the confirmation or rejection of the transaction.
5. If the transaction is confirmed, the payment is credited to the seller's account (and, if necessary, converted from the buyer's currency to the seller's currency at the bank rate at the time of the transaction).
6. In case of payment refusal, the payment is returned to the payment gateway.
7. If an error occurs, the payment request is returned as error text.

In more detail, the technical process of processing a transaction through a payment gateway can be seen in the image.

First, we will describe the criteria by which we will compare services. Next, we will compare the performance of popular gateways to determine which multi-currency payment gateway is optimal for you.

Multi-currency payment processing can take anywhere from a few minutes to several business days to process. During this time, the exchange rate may change significantly. Fast multi-currency payments are an indicator of a good gateway. When choosing a service, you must pay attention to this.

Another way to level the difference in exchange rates is to fix the exchange rate at the time of payment. This function is available in some gateways.

Another factor to consider is whether the payment gateway supports the currency of your target audience. Key currencies such as the dollar and euro are available at all multi-currency gateways, but you should pay attention to the less popular ones. For example, if your business operates throughout Europe, it is important to be able to accept payments not only in euros but also in Bulgarian levs, Czech korunas and other local currencies.

The more reliable security systems are built into the gateway, the lower the risk of fraud. The basic list of masthead activities includes:

• SSL encryption and digital signature;
• PCI DSS;
• CVV2 verification;
• Dynamic IP addresses.

All popular services use these methods.

In addition, the security indicator is popularity and reputation. If the gateway has been operating for a long time and has many customers, this is a good indicator. If there are known cases of hacker attacks and fraud, it is certainly bad.

The standard commission calculation scheme looks like this: % of the transaction amount + fixed amount. Sometimes an additional fee is charged for conversion and subscription to the service (monthly or annually).

Now it's time for specifics.

Let's divide the process into three stages:

1. Choose the integration method. 
   First, you need to choose which integration method you want to use: hosted or integrated. Hosted gateways are easier to connect, but they redirect to a separate checkout page. Integrated gateways are more difficult to implement, but they allow you to make payments directly on your website.
2. Choose a service provider. 
   Above, we have compared several of the most popular services. Study this topic in more detail and independently compare different companies to choose a payment gateway.
3. The further path depends on the selected provider. 
   The general principle is as follows: you register on the site and create a personal account. Then you configure the configurations that are convenient for you. The service will generate the HTML code of the payment button. You need to copy and paste this code on your site on the checkout page.

We will leave a link to the instructions of several popular gateways.

• #PayPal
• #Braintree
• #Worldpay
• #Stripe
• #Square

In case of difficulties, you can contact the technical support of these services.

Today, thousands of businesses around the world accept cryptocurrency for payment. At the same time, the process of processing a cryptocurrency transaction is very different from how a payment gateway works.

The main difference is that payment gateways are used to process transactions using traditional fiat currencies and usually require the involvement of third parties. Meanwhile, blockchain uses cryptographic encryption keys and operates autonomously.

As we have already found out, the payment gateway and the blockchain work with different types of currencies and have completely different flows. Does this mean that the world of fiat and the world of digital currencies will be forever separated? Not at all!

Whitepay's #crypto payment solutions allow you to accept more than 200+ digital assets and automatically convert them into a currency convenient for you — whether it's BTC, USDT, EUR, GBP etc.

We can say that Whitepay is a multi-currency payment gateway in the crypto world. You can also accept more than a hundred different currencies, but not fiat, but digital.

If you have both a multi-currency payment gateway and Whitepay payment solutions connected to your website, then you are ready for anything! Your business can accept any currency that is convenient for the client. And customers appreciate it.