i was just wondering how some providers offer international merchant accounts while others don't. i spoke to someone who said they could not offer international merchant accounts due to visa and mastercard regulations.

then wouldn't these regulations apply to all providers? how does someone like merchantaccounts4less offer international ma's?

Welcome to the forums skulker.

The answer is - it depends.

It depends on the acquiring bank. It depends on where you are located & it depends on if you have a presence in the United States. It depends if you are wanting a United States merchant account or something else?

Let's say you are not in the United States, but have a presence - i.e. bank account, address, even a social security number. Chances are that you could get a US merchant account limiting yourself to $10K a month in Visa / MasterCard transactions.

Now let's say you have none of this but still need a merchant account. To answer your specific question - we are a reseller. We have partnerhsips with a couple of different credit card processors. We would then refer your account over to one of them for underwriting.

To further clarify, international merchant accounts aren't against Visa/MC regulations in those various foreign territories.

It is just that U.S. Member Banks are restricted in the geographic scope that they are registered to acquire merchants in. There are also various laws, such as the Patriot Act, that must be adhered to as well.

In other words, it is perfectly permissable for a bank in Canada to setup a Canadian merchant.

But a U.S. Member Bank would likely not be able to setup a pure 100% Canadian merchant since this is out of their jurisdiction. (There are some exceptions where a Canadian merchant can qualify if they are Internet e-commerce accounts)

I am one of the 'problem cases' for merchant accounts because I live in a US territory, not a state. I am a US citizen, deal only in US currency but have to apply for a foreign account because of these Merchant account limitations. That's how I ended up getting stung on Paypal.

Yep, it can most definitely be a frustrating situation. Not to mention - most foreign banks don't want to share their turf with anyone else... especially some ISO/MSP who wants to aggressively sign up merchants at competitive pricing.

And since there are far fewer banks in most foreign countries than there are here in the U.S., competition is less aggressive and prices are kept much higher for merchants in most cases.

What if you establish a US LLC, have a US business bank account, US address, US Fax number and phone number, are you still considered an international client? and how can they know that you are international?

Aiesh

Originally posted by aiesh
What if you establish a US LLC, have a US business bank account, US address, US Fax number and phone number, are you still considered an international client? and how can they know that you are international?

Aiesh
Well they will still look at where your domain is registered. That will bring up one flag. Another flag - no social security number. If you had the social security number, US address, bank account, & the domain was registered to someone in the US, chances are you might be able to get a US merchant account with no problems. If you are requesting more than $30K a month, your account is usually viewed a little harder. And then $100K, you will need to provide financials, etc.

So it is the social security number that realy matters? Is that true?, because the domain is ".com" registered via register.com.

Well that is one thing. But if you are not in the US - it would be a bit harder to track you down if you are not using the SSN as much.

And it does not matter what domain registrar is used, but what country that the domain says. For example, yours says SA (Saudi Arabia?) for the URL in your signature

The SSN# is a vital piece of the underwriting process for a few reasons.

Not only does it help validate the person's identity, it helps with validating other information on the application with what appears on their credit reports.

Fraud alerts and other mechanisms can be queried based on the SSN# to help avoid situations where someone steals someone elses identity to setup a "bust out" merchant account scam.

It also helps ensure compliance with the Patriot Act as well given the notation that must be made on the credit reports regarding this.

Lastly, beyond the validation benefits, it is also gives a processor a sense of whether or not the merchant applying is going to stand behind their business in the event of unpaid chargebacks or fees.

However, the most concerning situation for any processor is when they can not pull up ANY credit on an account. That results in a nearly automatic decline for most processors.

So from one sense of it, bad credit is actually better than no credit, in the mindset of most processors!

How about a processor located outside the US, like worldpay.com, do they also ask for the US social security number if you apply to them with a US LLC, address, phone and fax numbers. Or is the social security number required by US processors only? Does anybody have any idea about that?

The reason I am asking is because I am in the process of establishing my new LLC with all of the above (address, phon, etc..) thinking this is going to solve the problem of being a non US business which have been preventing me of having my own merchant account.

Well if you are a citizen of the U.S, chances are very likely you will have a Social Security number. The U.S. processors expect that. And as Chris said - when they run the report & it comes up blank, this makes them wonder where you have been, what you have been up to.

The SSN is required by some processors. And some do not. It all depends on the processor. If you have everything else in the U.S.,your discount rate might be hgher & you might be limited to $10K a month in Visa / MasterCard volume.

There is no one answer - we cannot tell you: Yes the social is required by US processors only. Worldpay - well their merchants are from all over & they understand that that people outside the US will not have an SSN. Here is in the US, we love our numbers, we have a social security number, we have a driver's license number, etc. I am surprised that we are just named after a number

we have a bank account in the us, but nothing else. no ssn, no address no nothing. and on top of that, we are a high risk business. so most payment providers have shied away.

but i was wondering, if we could get our bank to set up a credit card gateway in our country, what all would they(the bank) need to do to accept credit cards? i mean since they will be accepting international credit cards, i dont see why they would need a merchant account or something like that.

Chances are they might outsource it. But since it being high risk, a lot of banks I know in the US do not understand e-commerce at all & definitely not high risk business.