International Credit Card Acceptance

The Credit Card Associations of Visa, American Express and MasterCard are global institutions and credit cards that bear the logo of either one are accepted in every store or ATM that accepts that type of card. There are other credit card brands that are accepted worldwide as well, e.g. JCB, Carte Blanche, Maestro, etc. It does not matter where the card has been issued. Discover cards are accepted exclusively in North America. There are differences, however, in the processing rates that merchants pay for accepting cards issued by a foreign bank. Card processing companies, licensed to provide US-based merchant accounts, settle the funds in US dollars. Credit and debit cards, issued abroad, on the other hand, use the local currency. When a credit card transaction is authorized and cleared, the funds will be settled in US dollars and a conversion fee may be charged to the merchant.

If you are going to be accepting credit cards, issued abroad, on a regular basis, you will need to make sure that you sign up with the right processing company. It is important that, before setting up your merchant services account, you check what your prospective payment processor's conversion rate is. You may find that a provider that offers higher processing rates actually has the cheapest solution for your needs, because they don't charge any conversion or cross-border fees.


US-based merchant services providers can provide small business merchant accounts solely to domestic business entities, with an address and bank account within the United States. They will settle your funds in US dollars.

In order to get your credit card transactions settled in a foreign currency, you will need to get an offshore merchant processor. The bigger companies among them have established relationships with multiple processing banks, located around the world and can settle your funds in a number of foreign currencies.

Before selecting the offshore option, however, it will be a good idea to look at the numbers and see if it is worth it. Also, it should be mentioned that this option is available only to web-based card processing establishments.

First of all, you should be advised that offshore card payment processing services are expensive. They offer processing rates that are substantially higher than domestic eCommerce merchant account rates. They also have substantial set up and maintenance costs. The cost differential can be so great that you might be better off establishing a US based merchant services credit card processing account and settling in dollars which you can then convert into the currency of your choice.

By: pscholes

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