Selling in Multiple Currencies Online, Settlement in USD

When a merchant or business gets ready to expand their online footprint around the world, there are a number of payments issues that need to be considered. The very nature of the internet means your website is already being looked at by potential customers outside your domestic market. Making the shopping a more pleasurable experience requires you to price in the currency your customer is most used to. E-Retailers have long recognized the additional revenue and growth that can come from looking to new markets. Chances are, you already have web traffic coming from visitors outside the United States.
If you are currently assessing the viability of selling to customers outside the US, you will need to sell in multiple currencies. But this does not mean you must open multiple currency bank accounts or establishing an account with an acquirer or Payment Service Provider in another region. One of your options is to sell in multiple currencies and settle in USD with a United States acquirer who is capable of offering this technology.
The Internet Retailer did a survey of their constituents and found that 26% of them found significant challenges in the ability of the customer to see the final landed cost in their local currency. It is important to separate the marketing requirement to let your customer shop in the currency of their choosing and your treasury concerns regarding the settlement of those currencies.
These days, you have options. It could be that you have suppliers or business expenses in the currency and do not want or need to convert the currency. In that situation, you are better of to get a merchant account within the region or country of your customers. In some cases your best option is to work with a Payment Service Provider that is contracted with multiple banks in various regions worldwide.
But if you want to manage all your accounting in USD and do not have any treasury requirements in multiple currency then your requirements are better suited to multiple currency conversion. Foreign exchange rates can be delivered on a daily basis and will lock in your currency exposure until that day’s transactions settle in USD. Your reconciliation will be simpler, as well. If you want or need your international transactions to be transparent and thoroughly auditable, this is a good solution.
Planet Payment is good option for these technologies and processing solutions. RocketPay is partnered with this organization to bring US merchants a single web based portal for reporting and reconciliation in different currencies either online or in a dynamic currency conversion environment for point of sale merchants with international customers. Learn more about these and other payment solutions at our website.
RocketPay will be speaking on a panel with Planet Payment at the Western States Acquirers conference in San Francisco, September 21 -23, 2011. If you require expert analysis on issues concerning international acquiring, multiple currency processing, dynamic currency concern and foreign exchange concerns, this is an excellent conference to be attending.