If you are finding it more difficult to get an offshore merchant account, you’re not imagining things.
Recent regulation changes from Visa have made the cross border acquiring process a little more complicated for merchants who want or need to process transactions through an offshore bank. Complicated, but certainly not impossible.
The cross border acquiring process is something Instabill merchant account managers can walk you through.
The New Age of Cross Border Acquiring
It used to be that merchants who were unable to get a domestic merchant account could opt for an offshore merchant account, and register their business in the country of their acquiring bank without having much of a presence.
Those days are likely over for good.
If a U.S. merchant cannot get a domestic merchant account, or prefers to get a merchant account through an acquiring bank in Europe, for example, Visa is requiring a few things:
- A physical office in the country of the acquiring bank.
- An employee working in that office.
- In some cases, a bank account – business or personal — in the same country of your acquiring bank.
Two Things We May See
With Visa’s cross border acquiring regulations, e-commerce merchants who are unable to obtain a domestic merchant account have more things to consider.
Alas, Wendy Jacques, Sales Manager at Instabill, believes merchants may turn to alternative payments:
“With the changes in cross border acquiring, I think we’re going to see merchants begin to accept alternative currencies, such as bitcoin and other digital currencies,” she noted. “I believe we’ll be selling more merchant accounts with alternative payments.”
Additionally, merchants in the U.S. unable to get a domestic merchant account can also turn to check solutions such as ACH, virtual checks and e-checks. Over the last 18 months, we’ve seen a significant increase in the use of checks.
We’ll Find You the Best Merchant Account Option
Since 2001, Instabill has provided merchant accounts to e-commerce, POS and MOTO businesses around the globe. Our merchant account managers can get the proper registrations while our acquiring banking partners will help merchants meet the current regulations for processing overseas.
Our merchant account managers are available direct at 1-800-530-2444 or by logging on to Instabill.com and clicking the live chat option.
