Comments on: Going to America – online business from down under

By: Geoff McQueen

Geoff McQueen — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:20:37 +0000

I’ve had a lot of progress and am hitting my head against many many walls. Am now looking at Hong Kong as a place to set up a company and accept US dollars. The US will only allow you to have a merchant account if you have a social security number. Painful.

By: Stuart McLeod

Stuart McLeod — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:31:13 +0000

Hi Geoff,

I am facing this very same problem and will shortly head off to some accountant to get some formal advice, but I thought I’d ask if you’d gotten any further in your investigations first?

Regards,

Stuart.

By: Geoff McQueen

Geoff McQueen — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:41:17 +0000

Adaptive Payments may be the solution I’ve been looking for… I’ll have a read of the PayPal doc you’ve linked to and see where the caveats/gotcha’s are.

If they:
1. Support depositing into Australian accounts, and
2. Allows us to set the “currency” to be US Dollars, and
3. Don’t require a “merchant account” on the destination account, and finally
4. Don’t charge more than a few % in fees

Fingers crossed! (PDF downloading)

By: Viet Nguyen

Viet Nguyen — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:22:01 +0000

Hi Geoff,

Viet here again. I have talked to ANZ and WorldPay service on their site has … nothing to do with ANZ. Everything you have to go through with WorldPay.

Today, I have just found out about Paypal Adaptive Payment services, document here: Adaptive Payment
“Guest Payments allows developers to collect credit card payments without requiring their customers to open a PayPal account, eliminating the complications merchants, developers and startups face in accepting credit cards”

Meanwhile, Visa is here in Australia:
http://www.payclick.com.au

Viet Nguyen

http://www.perfumelove.com.au – be scented

By: Viet Nguyen

Viet Nguyen — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:17:57 +0000

Hi Geoff,

I got to this page from Silicon Beach (by googling). Interesting read. I only accept Paypal for my site. The problem with Paypal is they charge 3.4%+0.30 for customers that are not in Australia. Plus exchange rate of another % difference. I was also thinking about create bank account in US, I was also looking at Citybank for free inter countries transfer but they will convert the money with they own exchange rate which is not published anywhere. End up Paypal is still ripping me up but I’ve peace of mind. However, I am still looking for a credit card payment solution that accept foreign currency as many would-be-customer said they don’t like/have paypal account and don’t bother to sign up

I have found this after reading your blog

http://www.anz.com/small-business/products-services/merchant-services/internet-payment-solutions/rbs-worldpay/
Kind of solution for your need, but I dont know about fee and exchange rate. Please let me know if you intend to find out. I will also check back this page often
Regards,
Viet Nguyen