South African Payment Gateway for International Currencies

[Crystalleeann]

Hey guys if you are a South African ecommerce store based in South Africa and you either have customers mainly based in Europe or the US and want your base currency in USD, GBP or EURO then I have a solution. As you can see, we are very limited when it comes to payment gateways that accept us as South Africans. What you have to do is create a company in the UK with a company called Companies Made Simple, you can use other companies (do your research first) but this is the company I used, and their customer service was extremely helpful. It is a bit pricy but will instantly solve your problems when it comes to setting a foreign base currency on your store. You will also create a Wise bank account in the process and that is how you will accept your funds. I was struggling to find a solution to this problem until a mentor of mine told me. It is actually a very common strategy used but I do not know why it has not been shared on the community yet. If you have any questions or need any help, I am more than glad to answer them for you. So basically, what this does it allows you to have a company address in the UK and then you are able to use shopify payments or stripe. You will then accept your shopify payments through your wise account and your wise account is connected to whatever local bank account you use. I hope this explanation makes sense. Why I use this method is because I have noticed that international customers are very skeptical to make purchases when your base currency is in Rands. They do not understand what rands are and honestly do not care to support foreign businesses 

NB: If you also have local customers then I would recommend that you have a currency converter app for when customers are checking out. Also, if you are going to be using this service, please do not pick the overpriced package because the company might get you to pick the international package that is way overpriced. Please pick the privacy package its cheaper and gets the job done.

[handrevdm]

Hi Crystalleeann

Thanks for posting - this helps alot to read that you have tried this and it is working. If I can ask a few questions?

• Which package on Companies Made Simple did you use?
• And how long does the process take to complete? 
• Was it easy to change your Shopify store to the new registered company in the UK? Any hassles with this?

Thanks

[Crystalleeann]

Hey! I used the Privacy package its about 70 ponds or euros. I can't
remember which currency they charged me in. There are other options but
that one works just fine. For me the process was extremely smooth in terms
of registering the company but that could be because I was being guided by
my mentor. So basically after registering the company in the UK you are
going to open a wise account using that very same address. There after you
will open a stripe account which will be linked to your Shopify store and
that's how you will receive payments. The process is not hard just slightly
expensive but for me this is the only way because most of my clients are in
the US,UK,Canada,Australia, and NewZealand so I really needed my base
currency in USD.

Just a heads up when registering the company on Companies Made Simple they
will require two proof of address documents just use two different banks,
for example Capitec and FNB. You do not have to get a TV licence because
that's the mistake I made. If you need any assistance even when it comes to
opening a Wise account or Stripe just message I will respond.

[Crystalleeann]

Hi Handrevdm

I used the Privacy Package, the international package is overpriced so no need for that one.

To register the company, it literally took 24 hours. The only thing that took long was gathering the documents for proof of address but to make it simple for yourself please use two different banks for proof of address. No need for TV license or utility bill. Two different banks work fine. As I mentioned I also had to create a WISE account under my business name that took just an hour and also create a Stripe account that took an hour or two. When creating a Stripe account do not register as an individual register as a business and you use the registration number that Companies Made Simple will give your business. But if you need any assistance please ask because I also got a lot of guidance.

Was it easy to change Shopify store. As I said I got some assistance, so the process only took about a few hours. So some of the things you will need to do is change your store address to the new UK one because as long as it says South Africa as your address you won't be able to add the stripe account you created. After changing your store address you will have to add stripe as your payment method and delete the other ones you had before. You might get stuck at the address part because after changing your store to the UK address you might still not see stripe as a payment method, you will just input any random Paris address then it will show stripe as a payment method. Once you are done setting up your stripe account you will change your address back to the UK one. You might wonder why we would need to change the address to a Paris address, well shopify has these glitches where it still won't show stripe even though you are using a UK address. Just got to play around with it.   

Also, with Stripe you will link your WISE account. In Wise they give you different options to accept money in USD, GBP,EURO etc. Just use the GBP account and you will connect the GBP WISE account to your Stripe. You will still be able to accept USD, EURO etc with the GBP account and have your store base currency as USD or Euros. 

I hope this all makes sense, but anywhere you are stuck please do not hesitate to ask. I am willing to help every step of the way. 

[handrevdm]

Hi Crystalleeann

Thanks for the reply and sharing your experience. 

I wanted to just check something, are you still able to use ZAR as a currency?

We have a mix between SA and UK clients visiting and buying from our store and the main reason for registering in the UK is so that we can auto switch currency when the user is coming in from UK etc.

[Crystalleeann]

I don't use ZAR, but yes you can use multicurrency. Not more than three though, you will set it up in markets if I'm not mistaken. 

[handrevdm]

Hi Crystalleeann

Thanks for the great feedback and information. I have managed to setup the UK entity, Wise Account and more. Still having some difficulty with getting my documents verified because of my utility bill's etc still in my maiden name. Sure will come right eventually. Wanted to ask how you setup the different Wise bank accounts on Shopify,i.e USD payments to go to the USD account, Pounds to go tho the Pound account etc. When I want to add another bank account on Shopify it wants to replace the existing one.

Many thanks again for sharing!