Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for Australian startup that is targeting toward global user? We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout. But, they're mostly US companies.
So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies. Thanks in advance.
> Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for*
> Australian* *startup* that is targeting toward global user?
> We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
> I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about
> Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout.
> But, they're mostly US companies.
> So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies.
> Thanks in advance.
Payment Express by DPS are an NZ firm with offices and support in
Australia. We resell their services (PX Post) and find them very good,
very reliable.
Like any payment gateway they have a number of example scripts you can
start with.
> Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for Australian startup that is targeting toward global user?
> We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
> I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout.
> But, they're mostly US companies.
> So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies.
> Thanks in advance.
Hi Hendro,
I am not sure which payment gateway is best but this depends on your
requirements especially if you are trying to sell customers that are
in US.
When I was looking for an open source solution to "setting up CC
transactions in an e-commerce site" I found that osCommerce has an add-
in for SunCorp and ANZ gateways and installing this is fairly easy
(http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,3968). I didn't
have a chance to test the add-in yet as it requires the merchant
account with SunCorp or ANZ. The package at the link has also an
explanatory document about how CC transaction gateway works which I
found very useful as I didn't know at all how these transactions work.
The reason for going with a bank rather than a payment gateway
provider is in most cases you need to have accounts both in payment
gateway provider and at a bank (like Virtual POS membership from
SunCorp) which increase the costs.
> Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for Australian startup that is targeting toward global user?
> We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
> I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout.
> But, they're mostly US companies.
> So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies.
> Thanks in advance.
Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
-----------------------------------------
Sent by emoze push mail
-original message-
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
Author: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
Date: 11th May 2009 14:17
Hi Hendro,
Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
No, I haven't setup any account yet.
To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave Cheong).
They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
Regards,
Hendro
twitter: hwijaya
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
> Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
> Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
> that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
> with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
> their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
> they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
> Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
> No, I haven't setup any account yet.
> To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave
> Cheong).
> They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I
> heard
> that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
> Regards,
> Hendro
> twitter: hwijaya
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
> To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
>> Hi Hendro,
>> Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
>> Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
>> that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to
>> go
>> with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
>> their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
>> they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this
(so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
My requirements are:
* customers pay in USD
* recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
* full control over the UI
Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a lot
of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and I
want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I need
to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not doing
anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security
hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is
good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to be
wrong, can someone verify this?)
* The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is reasonable:
* $1200 setup fee
* annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
* transaction fees of 10c +4.3%
* their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a
WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and
doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
* It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to
maintain this as a float?)
On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB Internet
merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank
of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
* standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) +
$280 for the recurring payment feature
* $430 annual fee
* transaction fees of 16c +3.95%
* for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer) they
hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway provider.
I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up costing
the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where there is
about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider for NAB.
I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it
editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be
great.
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is this including HSBC?
> Thanks for info Guys
> On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
> Hi,
> Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
> No, I haven't setup any account yet.
> To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave Cheong).
> They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard
> that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
> Regards,
> Hendro
> twitter: hwijaya
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
> To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
> Hi Hendro,
> Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
> Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
> that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
> with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
> their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
> they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
> I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this
> (so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
> My requirements are:
> * customers pay in USD
> * recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
> * full control over the UI
> Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a lot
> of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and I
> want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I need
> to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not doing
> anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security
> hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is
> good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
> I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to be
> wrong, can someone verify this?)
> * The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is reasonable:
> * $1200 setup fee
> * annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
> * transaction fees of 10c +4.3%
> * their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a
> WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and
> doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
> * It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to
> maintain this as a float?)
> On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB Internet
> merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
> The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank
> of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
> * standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) +
> $280 for the recurring payment feature
> * $430 annual fee
> * transaction fees of 16c +3.95%
> * for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer) they
> hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
> Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway provider.
> I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up costing
> the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where there is
> about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider for NAB.
> I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it
> editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be
> great.
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is this including HSBC?
> > Thanks for info Guys
> > On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
> > Hi,
> > Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
> > No, I haven't setup any account yet.
> > To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave Cheong).
> > They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard
> > that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ)
NAB
Citibank Singapore
UK HSBC
Westpac Pacific Islands
Does anyone know whether an Australian based business can open a
merchant account with BNZ, Citibank Singapore, UK HSBC or Westpac
Pacific Islands? If so, it might be worthwhile checking out their
prices also.
> On May 11, 8:04 pm, Mark Mansour <m...@stateofflux.com> wrote:
> > I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this
> > (so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
> > My requirements are:
> > * customers pay in USD
> > * recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
> > * full control over the UI
> > Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a lot
> > of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and I
> > want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I need
> > to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not doing
> > anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security
> > hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is
> > good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
> > I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to be
> > wrong, can someone verify this?)
> > * The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is reasonable:
> > * $1200 setup fee
> > * annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
> > * transaction fees of 10c +4.3%
> > * their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a
> > WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and
> > doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
> > * It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to
> > maintain this as a float?)
> > On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB Internet
> > merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
> > The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank
> > of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
> > * standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) +
> > $280 for the recurring payment feature
> > * $430 annual fee
> > * transaction fees of 16c +3.95%
> > * for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer) they
> > hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
> > Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway provider.
> > I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up costing
> > the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where there is
> > about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider for NAB.
> > I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it
> > editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be
> > great.
> > On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Is this including HSBC?
> > > Thanks for info Guys
> > > On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
> > > No, I haven't setup any account yet.
> > > To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave Cheong).
> > > They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard
> > > that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
Hi all,
As already mentioned, I only recently implemented credit card processing for
FormBinder and I did it with eWay/NAB. This eWay/NAB combination allowed me
to:
- charge in USD
- handle recurring payments
- retain full UI control
- handle variable amounts (eg user changing plans)
- deal with an Australian institution
According to my research, NAB is currently the only Australian bank that
deals with multi-currency.
NAB has a $1200 setup fee, but I wasn't required to have the $5000 USD
deposit. There is an additional $25 transaction fee every time I want to
transfer money to/from the account. Access to my USD merchant account is
possible either by going to a branch (yes, physically in person) or via
their "National Online" software. This software requires a Windows machine
(works on my Bootcamp Mac) and a 56k dial-up modem.
CBA also have a product that deals with USD, but it is in beta and not
opened to the general public. You need to have large transaction volumes in
order to be eligible for the beta, and I wasn't able to meet the criteria.
eWay provides a SOAP/XML api to create a managed customer account (ie credit
card) and handle payments. Recurring payments is done via a monthly
scheduler from my end which invokes the api periodically with the managed
customer id and the payment amount.
The integration to the gateway and my code was relatively simple (1-2 days
of work) but the admin and paper work associated with getting setup and
compliant was unnecessarily painful and drawn out. The main things they look
for are:
- SSL
- About us
- Contact details
- Terms and Conditions
- Privacy Policy
- Refund Policy
- Business plan (revenue projections, transaction volumes)
Both eWay *and* NAB require separate accounts for every currency supported.
This isn't a problem for me as I only deal with USD, but this is clearly not
a scalable solution if you're looking at expanding to other currencies.
If you're reading this in complete shock, you're right. I can't believe that
it is 2009 and Australia doesn't have a viable payment gateway solution to
support online/recurring services. We can talk about growing the startup
community via Silicon Beach all we want but the sad fact is Australia
doesn't have enough support structures in play to make it easy to start an
online business.
FormBinder is a zero-fuss service to help you create surveys and forms,
configure their look and feel and host them online to collect data. It's
super easy and fun. You don't have to be a whiz at technology, install any
software or worry about hosting, security and backups. We take care of all
that. All you have to do is type in your questions, choose a theme, tweak
some colours and start collecting data.
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Mark Mansour <m...@stateofflux.com> wrote:
> I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this
> (so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
> My requirements are:
> * customers pay in USD
> * recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
> * full control over the UI
> Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a
> lot of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and
> I want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I
> need to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not
> doing anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security
> hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is
> good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
> I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to
> be wrong, can someone verify this?)
> * The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is reasonable:
> * $1200 setup fee
> * annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
> * transaction fees of 10c +4.3%
> * their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a
> WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and
> doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
> * It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to
> maintain this as a float?)
> On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB
> Internet merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
> The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank
> of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
> * standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) +
> $280 for the recurring payment feature
> * $430 annual fee
> * transaction fees of 16c +3.95%
> * for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer) they
> hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
> Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway provider.
> I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up costing
> the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where there is
> about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider for NAB.
> I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it
> editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be
> great.
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is this including HSBC?
>> Thanks for info Guys
>> On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
>> Hi,
>> Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
>> No, I haven't setup any account yet.
>> To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave
>> Cheong).
>> They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard
>> that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
>> Regards,
>> Hendro
>> twitter: hwijaya
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
>> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
>> To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
>> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
>> Hi Hendro,
>> Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
>> Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
>> that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
>> with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
>> their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
>> they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Dave Cheong <d...@davecheong.com> wrote:
> If you're reading this in complete shock, you're right. I can't believe > that it is 2009 and Australia doesn't have a viable payment gateway solution > to support online/recurring services. We can talk about growing the startup > community via Silicon Beach all we want but the sad fact is Australia > doesn't have enough support structures in play to make it easy to start an > online business.
That's exactly the point! Bring smart people together - get them talking - create the change we need :) Up until yesterday, I didn't even realise this was an issue for Australian business.
It's amazing how much knowledge has just been poured into this discussion - next step is to identify what is ideal and let the banks know as a broad industry response. Worst case scenario...is that things stay the same.
Now I'm shocked with $1200 setup fee + $25 transaction fee and business plan. Although this sounds like an opportunity for another startup to shake-up that old banking industry.
I'm curious how other Australian startups did it. GoodBarry, Atlassian (well, when they first started out).
Theoretically, they're employing the same freemium model.
Cheers,
Hendro
From: Dave Cheong Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 10:50 PM
To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
Hi all,
As already mentioned, I only recently implemented credit card processing for FormBinder and I did it with eWay/NAB. This eWay/NAB combination allowed me to:
- charge in USD
- handle recurring payments
- retain full UI control
- handle variable amounts (eg user changing plans)
- deal with an Australian institution
According to my research, NAB is currently the only Australian bank that deals with multi-currency.
NAB has a $1200 setup fee, but I wasn't required to have the $5000 USD deposit. There is an additional $25 transaction fee every time I want to transfer money to/from the account. Access to my USD merchant account is possible either by going to a branch (yes, physically in person) or via their "National Online" software. This software requires a Windows machine (works on my Bootcamp Mac) and a 56k dial-up modem.
CBA also have a product that deals with USD, but it is in beta and not opened to the general public. You need to have large transaction volumes in order to be eligible for the beta, and I wasn't able to meet the criteria.
eWay provides a SOAP/XML api to create a managed customer account (ie credit card) and handle payments. Recurring payments is done via a monthly scheduler from my end which invokes the api periodically with the managed customer id and the payment amount.
The integration to the gateway and my code was relatively simple (1-2 days of work) but the admin and paper work associated with getting setup and compliant was unnecessarily painful and drawn out. The main things they look for are:
- SSL
- About us
- Contact details
- Terms and Conditions
- Privacy Policy
- Refund Policy
- Business plan (revenue projections, transaction volumes)
Both eWay *and* NAB require separate accounts for every currency supported. This isn't a problem for me as I only deal with USD, but this is clearly not a scalable solution if you're looking at expanding to other currencies.
If you're reading this in complete shock, you're right. I can't believe that it is 2009 and Australia doesn't have a viable payment gateway solution to support online/recurring services. We can talk about growing the startup community via Silicon Beach all we want but the sad fact is Australia doesn't have enough support structures in play to make it easy to start an online business.
FormBinder is a zero-fuss service to help you create surveys and forms, configure their look and feel and host them online to collect data. It's super easy and fun. You don't have to be a whiz at technology, install any software or worry about hosting, security and backups. We take care of all that. All you have to do is type in your questions, choose a theme, tweak some colours and start collecting data.
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Mark Mansour <m...@stateofflux.com> wrote:
I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this (so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
My requirements are:
* customers pay in USD
* recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
* full control over the UI
Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a lot of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and I want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I need to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not doing anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to be wrong, can someone verify this?)
* The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is reasonable:
* $1200 setup fee
* annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
* transaction fees of 10c +4.3% * their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
* It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to maintain this as a float?)
On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB Internet merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
* standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) + $280 for the recurring payment feature
* $430 annual fee
* transaction fees of 16c +3.95% * for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer) they hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway provider.
I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up costing the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where there is about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider for NAB.
I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be great.
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is this including HSBC?
Thanks for info Guys
On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
Hi,
Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
No, I haven't setup any account yet.
To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave Cheong).
They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
Regards,
Hendro
twitter: hwijaya
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
Hi Hendro,
Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
Hi Elias,
Thanks for the reply and you're totally right. Sorry, if I came off slightly
negative - thinking about payment gateways has reopened an old scabby wound
:) And yes, I'm in total support of the Silicon Beach effort and I hope our
discussions lead to concrete changes that help newbie entrepreneurs like me
and make the barriers to starting up less daunting.
dave
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Elias Bizannes
<elias.bizan...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Dave Cheong <d...@davecheong.com> wrote:
>> If you're reading this in complete shock, you're right. I can't believe
>> that it is 2009 and Australia doesn't have a viable payment gateway solution
>> to support online/recurring services. We can talk about growing the startup
>> community via Silicon Beach all we want but the sad fact is Australia
>> doesn't have enough support structures in play to make it easy to start an
>> online business.
> That's exactly the point! Bring smart people together - get them talking -
> create the change we need :) Up until yesterday, I didn't even realise this
> was an issue for Australian business.
> It's amazing how much knowledge has just been poured into this discussion -
> next step is to identify what is ideal and let the banks know as a broad
> industry response. Worst case scenario...is that things stay the same.
Hi Hendro,
To be honest, I had already forgotten about the $1200 setup fee. It was a
hard pill to swallow at first, but it's a once off and you can amortise the
cost (monetary, coding, integration and infrastructure) over any and all
products your company will deploy over the cost of its life.
The business plan isn't as scary as it sounds - I whipped mine up in 2 hours
with some Excel wizardry. All they are looking for here is transaction
volumes and the dollar amounts you are going to pump through their systems
over the next 12-24 months. I don't think they have the expertise in your
specific business domain to validate if your numbers are off track or
unrealistic.
dave
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 11:33 PM, Hendro Wijaya
<hendro_wij...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> Now I'm shocked with $1200 setup fee + $25 transaction fee and business
> plan.
> Although this sounds like an opportunity for another startup to shake-up
> that old banking industry.
> I'm curious how other Australian startups did it. GoodBarry, Atlassian
> (well, when they first started out).
> Theoretically, they're employing the same freemium model.
> Cheers,
> Hendro
> *From:* Dave Cheong <d...@davecheong.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 11, 2009 10:50 PM
> *To:* silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
> Hi all,
> As already mentioned, I only recently implemented credit card processing
> for FormBinder and I did it with eWay/NAB. This eWay/NAB combination allowed
> me to:
> - charge in USD
> - handle recurring payments
> - retain full UI control
> - handle variable amounts (eg user changing plans)
> - deal with an Australian institution
> According to my research, NAB is currently the only Australian bank that
> deals with multi-currency.
> NAB has a $1200 setup fee, but I wasn't required to have the $5000 USD
> deposit. There is an additional $25 transaction fee every time I want to
> transfer money to/from the account. Access to my USD merchant account is
> possible either by going to a branch (yes, physically in person) or via
> their "National Online" software. This software requires a Windows machine
> (works on my Bootcamp Mac) and a 56k dial-up modem.
> CBA also have a product that deals with USD, but it is in beta and not
> opened to the general public. You need to have large transaction volumes in
> order to be eligible for the beta, and I wasn't able to meet the criteria.
> eWay provides a SOAP/XML api to create a managed customer account (ie
> credit card) and handle payments. Recurring payments is done via a monthly
> scheduler from my end which invokes the api periodically with the managed
> customer id and the payment amount.
> The integration to the gateway and my code was relatively simple (1-2 days
> of work) but the admin and paper work associated with getting setup and
> compliant was unnecessarily painful and drawn out. The main things they look
> for are:
> - SSL
> - About us
> - Contact details
> - Terms and Conditions
> - Privacy Policy
> - Refund Policy
> - Business plan (revenue projections, transaction volumes)
> Both eWay *and* NAB require separate accounts for every currency supported.
> This isn't a problem for me as I only deal with USD, but this is clearly not
> a scalable solution if you're looking at expanding to other currencies.
> If you're reading this in complete shock, you're right. I can't believe
> that it is 2009 and Australia doesn't have a viable payment gateway solution
> to support online/recurring services. We can talk about growing the startup
> community via Silicon Beach all we want but the sad fact is Australia
> doesn't have enough support structures in play to make it easy to start an
> online business.
> Happy to help if anyone has further questions.
> Dave Cheong
> d...@mobiusly.com
> Mobiusly Pty Ltd
> FormBinder is a zero-fuss service to help you create surveys and forms,
> configure their look and feel and host them online to collect data. It's
> super easy and fun. You don't have to be a whiz at technology, install any
> software or worry about hosting, security and backups. We take care of all
> that. All you have to do is type in your questions, choose a theme, tweak
> some colours and start collecting data.
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Mark Mansour <m...@stateofflux.com>wrote:
>> I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this
>> (so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
>> My requirements are:
>> * customers pay in USD
>> * recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
>> * full control over the UI
>> Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a
>> lot of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and
>> I want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I
>> need to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not
>> doing anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security
>> hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is
>> good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
>> I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to
>> be wrong, can someone verify this?)
>> * The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is
>> reasonable:
>> * $1200 setup fee
>> * annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
>> * transaction fees of 10c +4.3%
>> * their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a
>> WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and
>> doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
>> * It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to
>> maintain this as a float?)
>> On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB
>> Internet merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
>> The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank
>> of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
>> * standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) +
>> $280 for the recurring payment feature
>> * $430 annual fee
>> * transaction fees of 16c +3.95%
>> * for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer)
>> they hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
>> Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway
>> provider.
>> I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up
>> costing the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where
>> there is about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider
>> for NAB.
>> I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it
>> editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be
>> great.
>> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Is this including HSBC?
>>> Thanks for info Guys
>>> On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
>>> No, I haven't setup any account yet.
>>> To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave
>>> Cheong).
>>> They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard
>>> that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
>>> Regards,
>>> Hendro
>>> twitter: hwijaya
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>> From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
>>> To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
>>> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
>>> Hi Hendro,
>>> Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
>>> Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
>>> that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
>>> with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
>>> their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
>>> they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
Wow $1200? I know this sounds silly (and slightly off topic), but all of a
sudden Apple charging you 30% to handle payments and distribution seems like
pittence doesnt it? Atleast for a smalltime developer whose only assets are
his/her coding and design skills?
cheers
Sri
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 11:33 PM, Hendro Wijaya
<hendro_wij...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> Now I'm shocked with $1200 setup fee + $25 transaction fee and business
> plan.
> Although this sounds like an opportunity for another startup to shake-up
> that old banking industry.
> I'm curious how other Australian startups did it. GoodBarry, Atlassian
> (well, when they first started out).
> Theoretically, they're employing the same freemium model.
> Cheers,
> Hendro
> *From:* Dave Cheong <d...@davecheong.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 11, 2009 10:50 PM
> *To:* silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
> Hi all,
> As already mentioned, I only recently implemented credit card processing
> for FormBinder and I did it with eWay/NAB. This eWay/NAB combination allowed
> me to:
> - charge in USD
> - handle recurring payments
> - retain full UI control
> - handle variable amounts (eg user changing plans)
> - deal with an Australian institution
> According to my research, NAB is currently the only Australian bank that
> deals with multi-currency.
> NAB has a $1200 setup fee, but I wasn't required to have the $5000 USD
> deposit. There is an additional $25 transaction fee every time I want to
> transfer money to/from the account. Access to my USD merchant account is
> possible either by going to a branch (yes, physically in person) or via
> their "National Online" software. This software requires a Windows machine
> (works on my Bootcamp Mac) and a 56k dial-up modem.
> CBA also have a product that deals with USD, but it is in beta and not
> opened to the general public. You need to have large transaction volumes in
> order to be eligible for the beta, and I wasn't able to meet the criteria.
> eWay provides a SOAP/XML api to create a managed customer account (ie
> credit card) and handle payments. Recurring payments is done via a monthly
> scheduler from my end which invokes the api periodically with the managed
> customer id and the payment amount.
> The integration to the gateway and my code was relatively simple (1-2 days
> of work) but the admin and paper work associated with getting setup and
> compliant was unnecessarily painful and drawn out. The main things they look
> for are:
> - SSL
> - About us
> - Contact details
> - Terms and Conditions
> - Privacy Policy
> - Refund Policy
> - Business plan (revenue projections, transaction volumes)
> Both eWay *and* NAB require separate accounts for every currency supported.
> This isn't a problem for me as I only deal with USD, but this is clearly not
> a scalable solution if you're looking at expanding to other currencies.
> If you're reading this in complete shock, you're right. I can't believe
> that it is 2009 and Australia doesn't have a viable payment gateway solution
> to support online/recurring services. We can talk about growing the startup
> community via Silicon Beach all we want but the sad fact is Australia
> doesn't have enough support structures in play to make it easy to start an
> online business.
> Happy to help if anyone has further questions.
> Dave Cheong
> d...@mobiusly.com
> Mobiusly Pty Ltd
> FormBinder is a zero-fuss service to help you create surveys and forms,
> configure their look and feel and host them online to collect data. It's
> super easy and fun. You don't have to be a whiz at technology, install any
> software or worry about hosting, security and backups. We take care of all
> that. All you have to do is type in your questions, choose a theme, tweak
> some colours and start collecting data.
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Mark Mansour <m...@stateofflux.com>wrote:
>> I'm in the same situation and I've just started my investigation into this
>> (so my info may be a bit off - can someone comment on how right it is?)
>> My requirements are:
>> * customers pay in USD
>> * recurring payments - I'm providing a subscription service
>> * full control over the UI
>> Retaining full control over the UI is important to me because you lose a
>> lot of people between initiating the checkout and completing the payment and
>> I want to do everything I can to smooth that path. It also means that I
>> need to be PCI compliant which is a security check to make sure I'm not
>> doing anything stupid with credit cards and that my system has been security
>> hardened to an "acceptable" level. I think security hardening your site is
>> good practice to the PCI compliance is not a big deal to me.
>> I'm pretty hesitant to use the NAB solution because (and I'd love this to
>> be wrong, can someone verify this?)
>> * The multi-currency facility fees are higher than I think is
>> reasonable:
>> * $1200 setup fee
>> * annual fees of (28 + (7 + 22)* 12) ~= $350
>> * transaction fees of 10c +4.3%
>> * their "advanced financial management software program" is managed with a
>> WINDOWS DESKTOP CLIENT (they explicitly don't support Apple or Unix OSs) and
>> doesn't use the internet. It instead requires something called a 56k modem.
>> * It also requires a USD$5000 deposit to open the account (do you need to
>> maintain this as a float?)
>> On top of this I believe you also need a gateway to hook up the NAB
>> Internet merchant facilities. I haven't costed these solutions.
>> The other solution I've been looking into is WorldPay (owned by Royal Bank
>> of Scotland). They too are not cheap but:
>> * standard account setup fee is 0 (well, it is waived on a promo deal) +
>> $280 for the recurring payment feature
>> * $430 annual fee
>> * transaction fees of 16c +3.95%
>> * for the first 6 months (i.e. until they trust you are not a scammer)
>> they hold your money for 4 weeks before you can get to it.
>> Worldpay acts as both an internet merchant facility and a gateway
>> provider.
>> I did some very quick calculations and both WorldPay and NAB end up
>> costing the same (very roughtly) with the exception of the setup fee where
>> there is about a $1000 difference and the requirement for gateway provider
>> for NAB.
>> I've started a spreadsheet with some very rough calculations and made it
>> editable by anyone. If anyone is keen to add to it then that would be
>> great.
>> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Kai Waldon <kai.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Is this including HSBC?
>>> Thanks for info Guys
>>> On 11/05/2009, at 4:04 PM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> Thanks all for the reply. This community rocks! =D
>>> No, I haven't setup any account yet.
>>> To give credit, our model is similar to Mobiusly' FormBinder (Dave
>>> Cheong).
>>> They're using NAB with eWay. I might go with that path too since I heard
>>> that NAB is the only bank that deal with multi-currency.
>>> Regards,
>>> Hendro
>>> twitter: hwijaya
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>> From: "Rolf" <sonnen...@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 2:17 PM
>>> To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
>>> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
>>> Hi Hendro,
>>> Do you already have an Internet Merchant Account with your bank? Some
>>> Australian banks don't allow you to charge in US dollars. So check
>>> that first. We will only trade in Australian Dollars and decided to go
>>> with eway. Setup was easy. We also investigated Netregistry and liked
>>> their pricing (flat fee, regardless of volume of transactions) but
>>> they couldn't work with our bank, which was the deal stopper.
I work for DPS / Payment Express out of the Sydney office. If you like
I can have a chat with you with all your available options as NAB
might not be your only choice regarding merchant acquiring. You can
contact me via my direct line which is (02) 8268 7703 or alternatively
on 1800 006 254.
Regards,
Byron Kelly
Ecommerce Analyst.
On May 10, 3:53 am, "Hendro Wijaya" <hendro_wij...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for Australian startup that is targeting toward global user?
> We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
> I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout.
> But, they're mostly US companies.
> So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies.
> Thanks in advance.
You should give Daniel Goncalves a call at United Payments (1300 306 679). My understanding is that he runs the only non-bank merchant banking facility in Australia (out of Sydney). I haven't worked with him professionally, but we always have a good chat when we bump into each other at the local café. At the very least he'll be able to point you in the right direction, since his head has been in this space for a number of years.
> Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for > Australian startup that is targeting toward global user? > We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
> I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about > Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout. > But, they're mostly US companies.
> So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies. > Thanks in advance.
Sure. Thanks.
I will give both Daniel and Byron a call.
Cheers,
Hendro
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Nathan de Vries" <nat...@atnan.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:45 AM
To: <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Which payment gateway?
> You should give Daniel Goncalves a call at United Payments (1300 306
> 679). My understanding is that he runs the only non-bank merchant
> banking facility in Australia (out of Sydney). I haven't worked with
> him professionally, but we always have a good chat when we bump into
> each other at the local café. At the very least he'll be able to point
> you in the right direction, since his head has been in this space for
> a number of years.
> Cheers,
> Nathan de Vries
> On 10/05/2009, at 3:53 AM, Hendro Wijaya wrote:
>> Hi,
>> Does anyone have experience on which payment gateway is best for
>> Australian startup that is targeting toward global user?
>> We plan to charge in US dolar but the company is in Australia.
>> I've read few discussion in HN and a lot of people talk about
>> Authorize.net, Paypal, Amazon or Google Checkout.
>> But, they're mostly US companies.
>> So, just curious on what is best for Oz companies.
>> Thanks in advance.
This has been a really useful discussion (thank you) ... I am looking
for a slightly different solution and I was wondering is anyone has
any answers for me ...
In summary, we already have a WorldPay account, which will allow us to
collect in multiple currencies, but this only allows us to redeem the
money into our Australian bank account .... but we want to redeem our
money in different currencies to OFFSHORE bank accounts.
For example, we would like to collect USD and have that deposited into
our US bank account (as USD, with no currency conversion) and also
collect GBP and have that deposited into our UK bank account (as GBP,
with no currency conversion).
Anyone know any service providers that can do this for us?
My understanding is that the reason for needing services such as that
which WorldPay offers is to be able to accept payments in currencies
associated with countries that you don't reside in or have bank
accounts in. If you have a presence in the UK or US to the degree that
you were able to establish a bank account there, wouldn't you also be
able to also establish a standard merchant services account there?
Once you have the merchant account you would configure a payment
gateway from a third party or directly with the bank to process
payments.
I might be missing something, but I would have thought it to be the
same as setting up an Australian merchant account clearing into an
Australian bank account in AUD except you're doing it in the US/UK in
the respective local currency?
> This has been a really useful discussion (thank you) ... I am looking
> for a slightly different solution and I was wondering is anyone has
> any answers for me ...
> In summary, we already have a WorldPay account, which will allow us to
> collect in multiple currencies, but this only allows us to redeem the
> money into our Australian bank account .... but we want to redeem our
> money in different currencies to OFFSHORE bank accounts.
> For example, we would like to collect USD and have that deposited into
> our US bank account (as USD, with no currency conversion) and also
> collect GBP and have that deposited into our UK bank account (as GBP,
> with no currency conversion).
> Anyone know any service providers that can do this for us?
The main difference is that to establish the merchant account in each
country often requires you to set a up business in those countries (we
are fortunate enough to have bank accounts in other countries without
having to set up a company in those countries).
Additionally, we hope to add additionally currencies, like CAD, EURO,
NZD etc and we hoping to find a global solution that handles a number
of currencies.
Yes, we could obtain a merchant account in each different country, but
this would cost extra establishment fees (and other fees) for each
country as well as the cost of programming each different solution
etc ... I was hoping for maybe a global solution that accepts multiple
currencies and will redeem that money into different bank accounts in
different countries.
Any further thoughts?
I find it hard to believe that we are the only people looking for such
a solution.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Joe
On May 13, 9:11 pm, Andrew Rogers <andrew.rog...@anchor.com.au> wrote:
> My understanding is that the reason for needing services such as that
> which WorldPay offers is to be able to accept payments in currencies
> associated with countries that you don't reside in or have bank
> accounts in. If you have a presence in the UK or US to the degree that
> you were able to establish a bank account there, wouldn't you also be
> able to also establish a standard merchant services account there?
> Once you have the merchant account you would configure a payment
> gateway from a third party or directly with the bank to process
> payments.
> I might be missing something, but I would have thought it to be the
> same as setting up an Australian merchant account clearing into an
> Australian bank account in AUD except you're doing it in the US/UK in
> the respective local currency?
> > This has been a really useful discussion (thank you) ... I am looking
> > for a slightly different solution and I was wondering is anyone has
> > any answers for me ...
> > In summary, we already have a WorldPay account, which will allow us to
> > collect in multiple currencies, but this only allows us to redeem the
> > money into our Australian bank account .... but we want to redeem our
> > money in different currencies to OFFSHORE bank accounts.
> > For example, we would like to collect USD and have that deposited into
> > our US bank account (as USD, with no currency conversion) and also
> > collect GBP and have that deposited into our UK bank account (as GBP,
> > with no currency conversion).
> > Anyone know any service providers that can do this for us?- Hide quoted text -
|
