1. Time

Many of my clients at Alternative Payments had previously relied on wire transfers as the form of payment from their international customers. Most were unhappy with the time it took to receive their money. Settlement for wire transfers is 3-4 business days at best. We can’t forget that on the end of this transaction is a customer who watched money vanish from their account and sits idly by waiting on you to let them know it’s made it into your hands. They sat delayed waiting on you to ship their purchase or provide the service they’ve selected you for.

2. Money

Banks have a way of holding businesses hostage while finding away to charge you a fee for the privilege.

US businesses who lack an international payments solution are paying on average $17.50* to their bank to receive an inbound foreign wire transfer. Of course on the other end was a fee to send it, as much as $30US. Combining these two fees would make a $500US transaction have a cost of almost 10%! When you look at a bank debit payment option like EuroDebit which is a SEPA compliant solution (thereby available to every European bank account holder), the same transaction could have a total cost of under 3.2%. The money is tracked the entire time, the transaction status can be monitored as well as your customer paid nothing and your business keeps the 7% savings.

EuroDebit facts:

3.2% = Average rate per transaction
SEPA (Single Euro Payment Area) compliant
33 EU countries are covered by SEPA
520 million Europeans are potential users
AlternativePayments.com is the exclusive provider for EuroDebit

*Stat from mybanktracker.com