International payments made easy
Global customers are the new normal.
Even for small businesses and freelancers. In fact, your whole customer base could be international.
Digital connectivity is superb for accessing an exponentially expanding market, but it also introduces the complication of receiving international payments.
If your business can’t accept cross border payments, then you're excluding billions of potential customers.
It's no secret that the technology exists to take international payments. But many businesses still face hidden costs and friction in the process. The systems behind many international payments are expensive, opaque and downright slow.
So today we're going to unpack everything, including how to accept international payments, which payment methods suit your business model and how to avoid fees.
What makes international payments different from domestic payments?
If you're not used to making and receiving international payments, then it can quickly become frustrating. There's so much more to consider compared to domestic financial transactions.
Here's a quick breakdown of the differences:
1. Currency conversions that impact pricing and margins
When sending quotes and invoices, you might underestimate foreign exchange costs. That's the fee that's charged to transfer from one currency to another. For example, switching Euros into Dollars.
Many unsuspecting business owners are paying a 2-3% hidden fee when receiving international wire transfers. It doesn't sound like much, but across dozens or hundreds of transactions, it can be thousands of dollars.
And the thing that banks don't want you to know? It's almost invisible in your statement. You end up absorbing the loss or passing it on to customers, which hurts your competitiveness in the market.
So before you start with international payments, learn your provider's currency conversion costs and find someone with a reasonable rate or zero markup like Acctual.
2. Cross border fees and intermediary banks
For money to move from one country to another, it needs to pass through several middlemen. These are different payment processors and intermediary banks.
The payee and the recipient don't get to see this process. It's completely opaque. But under the hood, each middleman is taking their own cut.
Card networks like Visa and Mastercard can take 1% or more. Correspondent banks can be unpredictable, racking up charges of anywhere between $15 and $50, while the receiver's bank might charge a significant fee too. Everyone's skimming off the top.
This is particularly prevalent in traditional banking systems like wire transfers, whereas modern payment platforms can eliminate these intermediaries to help exclude these damaging fees.
3. Compliance Layers
Did you know you can't accept payments from anywhere in the world and move on? There needs to be continuous oversight and compliance.
Most developed nations enforce Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) laws on all payments. Plus, there are sanction screenings. That means your payments must be screened against OFAC lists, along with UN and EU sanctions.
In particular, large transactions over $10,000 can trigger enhanced due diligence. This all slows processing down. It’s another reason international payments can take days to clear compared to the instantaneous nature of domestic payments.
Compliance isn't something that falls directly on a business. Whichever payment processor you're using, it should be a standard part of their service.
4. Payment and Settlement Times
Depending on the payment corridor used, the time it takes for money to arrive in your account from an international payment can be drastically different. It can arrive almost instantly with modern payment platforms or take 5+ business days for more traditional methods.
The worst thing about it all is the opaque design. You can invoice a client, they can issue the payment and then the money disappears into the financial system, leaving you in the dark as to when payments will arrive. You end up hurriedly checking your bank every morning to see if the money has hit your account.
At minimum, it's unnecessary stress. At maximum, it can make cash flow management a nightmare for businesses with tight funds.
5. Hidden Complexities
We're all fluent at making payments in our own currency. It comes as second nature now. The click of a button, the tap of a card. Internationally, you can't just ‘send money’.
There are different payment corridors to navigate. Each corridor has its own rules, speeds, fees and regulations. So one payment method across Europe will fail in Asia.
And that's all before you're reconciling across exchange rate fluctuations, multiple transactions, accounting methods and shipping costs.
In layman's terms, a payment setup that works in one market might not work for all. It can be hard to find a one size fits all approach to international payments. That's why Acctual was born, to handle everything for you without the hidden fees.
The use cases: When and why businesses accept global payments
When building your international payment workflow, you need to highlight every area in your business that needs global payment coverage.
This might be simple if you sell one product, to one market, in one channel. But if you're selling multiple services and products across several markets, then things get complicated.
Here are some business use cases to think about for your international payments:
1. Ecommerce selling abroad
Ecommerce spans several sectors: D2C, marketplaces, subscription and wholesale. Just look at how many different sectors Amazon covers.
Even though it's become a mature market, ecommerce is still growing at around an 8% compound annual growth rate, expected to hit $11.4 trillion by 2029.
The sector spans almost every market: China, the US, India, Latin America and Asia. But payment preferences vary widely by region. For example, digital wallets dominate in China, while the UK relies heavily on debit and credit card payments.
As a business, you need to understand that cross border ecommerce conversion rates drop aggressively if local payment methods aren't offered. You need to allow people to pay in their preferred local way.
And that includes D2C products, B2B services and even freelancers selling digital products, which brings us nicely onto service businesses.
2. Service businesses working with overseas clients
By far the biggest problem for service providers like agencies, consultants and freelancers is chasing late payments. They're often at the mercy of large companies' payment terms or get shunted to the bottom of the list when it comes to fulfilling invoices.
If you're stuck waiting 90 days for a payment on a big project, followed by days of international settlement and spiraling fees, it can be devastating for a small business.
Particularly in the B2B world, having a well run global invoicing and payment workflow makes all the difference. It allows you to issue invoices efficiently with accurate payment information. In addition, it enables businesses to pay in their preferred currency and method without crushing fees.
Something that Acctual is specifically designed to do.
3. Recurring payments and retainers
Many freelancers and consultants work exclusively in international markets. For example, it's common for businesses in the US and the UK to hire remote workers in South Africa. It offers access to English speaking talent for lower hourly costs.
But if you're a remote worker like this, you need a way to set up retainers and recurring payments to make sure you get paid on time every week or month. The downside is it's not as easy as setting up a normal direct debit or bank transfer.
Payment systems between countries are often incompatible. Plus, you'll get slapped with the traditional issues we've discussed above.
Technology is helping to solve this problem with many payment platforms taking care of the behind-the-scenes work or offering multicurrency accounts with transparent FX rates for efficiency.
However, these platforms can be limiting, still have hidden fees and often require the payee to have an account on those platforms.
Again, Acctual avoids all of these problems, allowing you to take payments in any currency and have it arrive in your preferred bank account or digital wallet, all without hidden fees or sneaky currency conversion markups.
4. Internal money transfers
If you're working internationally, you'll also run into the problem of managing funds in different currencies. You might have bank accounts open in different markets or use platforms like Wise. Both require you to juggle multicurrency accounts.
When you’re working in multiple currencies and accounts, you’ll regularly need to transfer money between them. You’ll need to ensure cash flow, meet payment commitments and perform dozens of other business operations across your accounts. It’s a recipe for chaos that, if left unchecked, can cost a business thousands in fees and efficiency costs.
To manage internal organization money transfers effectively, you need systems, technology and accounting processes for moving funds from one currency to another. It may seem easy, but it adds an extra layer of admin.
Adding to this, it leaves you open to potential financial and tax regulations in currencies where the accounts exist.
How to accept international payments
So now you understand why and where global payments come into business. Let's talk about how.
There's a myriad of different options available now, from traditional payment networks to online payment platforms to cryptocurrency.
1. Bank transfers (Swift, BIC, IBAN)
You can use traditional payment rails for international transfers. There are clear mechanisms that allow banks to communicate and transfer funds.
For example, SWIFT is a route for correspondent banking networks, while IBAN and BIC codes provide standardization for global banking.
Traditional banking is the safe choice and tends to come with more protections and security checks. But it's outdated. Fees are high, often costing $50 or more. And it can take days, if not weeks, for money to reach its final destination.
It's not optimized for internet speed global commerce.
2. Card payments (Visa, Mastercard, Amex)
If you want to receive international payments, then you can offer card payments to your customers and clients. You will, however, need extra technology on top of your bank account.
This requires a payment processor that takes the card details of your customer and issues the transaction.
If you're working cross currency, then card payments can get expensive with cross border transactions incurring fees of anywhere between 1 and -3%.
As the receiver, you might not often see that fee. But for your customers, they are likely to incur the cost on their credit card. That can make you uncompetitive in the market and leave a bad taste in the mouth of customers.
Adding to this, while authorization happens in seconds, the settlement (aka the money arriving in your bank) can take one to three business days.
So it is a convenient option, particularly for ecommerce and online sales, but that comes at a cost. If you want to use credit card payments for your business, there are well known options including Stripe and PayPal or Acctual offers payment options for easy client invoice settlement.
3. Online Payment Platforms (Stripe, PayPal, Wise, Acctual)
The solution to all of this antiquated banking technology, high fees and slow settlement times is technology.
PayPal is arguably the market leader, certainly the most well known brand when it comes to digital payments. But it's up against tough competition in recent years, particularly with the likes of Stripe, Wise and Acctual. They offer flexibility for cross border payments.
In short, they allow you to set up accounts in dozens of different currencies, even giving you banking details in specific countries. For example, a business in the US could open an account in Australia and accept AUD into an Australian dollar currency account on Wise.
You'll also get a large selection of payment options. For example, Stripe is optimized to accept credit card payments for ecommerce businesses.
These types of platforms are purpose-built for global internet commerce. They handle everything from compliance to fraud detection to multicurrency complexities.
On the downside, there can be hidden fees. PayPal is notorious for high FX markups, holding funds for weeks and adding withdrawal fees. Plus, you might find it necessary to manage multicurrency accounts, adding in that annoying extra layer of admin.
Acctual offers even better international payment flexibility without the hidden fees. There's only a 1% fee on international payments. That's it.
Wherever you do business, it allows you to issue an invoice and provide your client's preferred payment choice, all without the need for multicurrency accounts.
Plus, you can even integrate cryptocurrency stablecoins in the same way for cross border payments.
4. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (USDT, USDC)
That brings us nicely onto digital currencies, aka cryptocurrencies. There's a specific type of crypto that's perfectly suited to receiving international payments. They're known as stablecoins.
The most well-known of these are USDT and USDC. These are digital coins pegged to the US dollar. It means one coin is always worth one dollar.
Now, the beauty of these is that they avoid all traditional payment systems and currencies. They run on blockchain technology in a peer to peer fashion. So one individual or entity can send funds directly to another. Everything is automatically handled by the blockchain network.
Settlement takes seconds with minimum fees, thanks to the avoidance of currency conversion and intermediary banks. Modern currency for modern business.
The only downside is the integration with traditional banking systems. It can be hard to actually transfer USDT into normal US dollars. You need to find an offramp to get the money in your bank account.
Acctual solves this problem instantly. Stablecoins are natively integrated into its invoicing and payment systems.
That means you could allow your client to pay you in USDT stablecoin and you receive the money straight into your fiat bank account. Or any other way you like, whether that's into your crypto wallet or vice versa. You could allow your client to pay in fiat dollars and receive the funds directly into your crypto wallet.
Everything's handled automatically in the background.
Receive international payments with Acctual
Acctual cuts through the complexity of accepting international payments, saving you time and money.
The platform is built to be the best way to receive international payments, eliminating high fees and slow transaction times.
You’ll benefit from the lowest industry fee at 1% with no hidden fees or aggressive currency markups. You can issue invoices with payment options for dozens of fiat and stablecoin currencies, giving you complete flexibility in making your payments.
So your customer could pay in fiat currency and you receive it in stablecoin in another country. Or vice versa.
For example, a US client can pay in US Dollars while a freelancer in Africa can receive USDT stablecoin directly in their crypto wallet, all on the same day.
The free, easy to use invoice generator is specifically designed for people wondering how to receive payment from international clients. In seconds, you can add all the necessary details, itemize service descriptions and select payment terms and methods.
You can even move company funds between internal bank accounts and wallets with everything automatically integrated into your accounting system, like Xero or QuickBooks.
Now go on… try it today, it’ll work: Get started in 2 minutes with a free account.
International payments made easy
Global customers are the new normal.
Even for small businesses and freelancers. In fact, your whole customer base could be international.
Digital connectivity is superb for accessing an exponentially expanding market, but it also introduces the complication of receiving international payments.
If your business can’t accept cross border payments, then you're excluding billions of potential customers.
It's no secret that the technology exists to take international payments. But many businesses still face hidden costs and friction in the process. The systems behind many international payments are expensive, opaque and downright slow.
So today we're going to unpack everything, including how to accept international payments, which payment methods suit your business model and how to avoid fees.
What makes international payments different from domestic payments?
If you're not used to making and receiving international payments, then it can quickly become frustrating. There's so much more to consider compared to domestic financial transactions.
Here's a quick breakdown of the differences:
1. Currency conversions that impact pricing and margins
When sending quotes and invoices, you might underestimate foreign exchange costs. That's the fee that's charged to transfer from one currency to another. For example, switching Euros into Dollars.
Many unsuspecting business owners are paying a 2-3% hidden fee when receiving international wire transfers. It doesn't sound like much, but across dozens or hundreds of transactions, it can be thousands of dollars.
And the thing that banks don't want you to know? It's almost invisible in your statement. You end up absorbing the loss or passing it on to customers, which hurts your competitiveness in the market.
So before you start with international payments, learn your provider's currency conversion costs and find someone with a reasonable rate or zero markup like Acctual.
2. Cross border fees and intermediary banks
For money to move from one country to another, it needs to pass through several middlemen. These are different payment processors and intermediary banks.
The payee and the recipient don't get to see this process. It's completely opaque. But under the hood, each middleman is taking their own cut.
Card networks like Visa and Mastercard can take 1% or more. Correspondent banks can be unpredictable, racking up charges of anywhere between $15 and $50, while the receiver's bank might charge a significant fee too. Everyone's skimming off the top.
This is particularly prevalent in traditional banking systems like wire transfers, whereas modern payment platforms can eliminate these intermediaries to help exclude these damaging fees.
3. Compliance Layers
Did you know you can't accept payments from anywhere in the world and move on? There needs to be continuous oversight and compliance.
Most developed nations enforce Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) laws on all payments. Plus, there are sanction screenings. That means your payments must be screened against OFAC lists, along with UN and EU sanctions.
In particular, large transactions over $10,000 can trigger enhanced due diligence. This all slows processing down. It’s another reason international payments can take days to clear compared to the instantaneous nature of domestic payments.
Compliance isn't something that falls directly on a business. Whichever payment processor you're using, it should be a standard part of their service.
4. Payment and Settlement Times
Depending on the payment corridor used, the time it takes for money to arrive in your account from an international payment can be drastically different. It can arrive almost instantly with modern payment platforms or take 5+ business days for more traditional methods.
The worst thing about it all is the opaque design. You can invoice a client, they can issue the payment and then the money disappears into the financial system, leaving you in the dark as to when payments will arrive. You end up hurriedly checking your bank every morning to see if the money has hit your account.
At minimum, it's unnecessary stress. At maximum, it can make cash flow management a nightmare for businesses with tight funds.
5. Hidden Complexities
We're all fluent at making payments in our own currency. It comes as second nature now. The click of a button, the tap of a card. Internationally, you can't just ‘send money’.
There are different payment corridors to navigate. Each corridor has its own rules, speeds, fees and regulations. So one payment method across Europe will fail in Asia.
And that's all before you're reconciling across exchange rate fluctuations, multiple transactions, accounting methods and shipping costs.
In layman's terms, a payment setup that works in one market might not work for all. It can be hard to find a one size fits all approach to international payments. That's why Acctual was born, to handle everything for you without the hidden fees.
The use cases: When and why businesses accept global payments
When building your international payment workflow, you need to highlight every area in your business that needs global payment coverage.
This might be simple if you sell one product, to one market, in one channel. But if you're selling multiple services and products across several markets, then things get complicated.
Here are some business use cases to think about for your international payments:
1. Ecommerce selling abroad
Ecommerce spans several sectors: D2C, marketplaces, subscription and wholesale. Just look at how many different sectors Amazon covers.
Even though it's become a mature market, ecommerce is still growing at around an 8% compound annual growth rate, expected to hit $11.4 trillion by 2029.
The sector spans almost every market: China, the US, India, Latin America and Asia. But payment preferences vary widely by region. For example, digital wallets dominate in China, while the UK relies heavily on debit and credit card payments.
As a business, you need to understand that cross border ecommerce conversion rates drop aggressively if local payment methods aren't offered. You need to allow people to pay in their preferred local way.
And that includes D2C products, B2B services and even freelancers selling digital products, which brings us nicely onto service businesses.
2. Service businesses working with overseas clients
By far the biggest problem for service providers like agencies, consultants and freelancers is chasing late payments. They're often at the mercy of large companies' payment terms or get shunted to the bottom of the list when it comes to fulfilling invoices.
If you're stuck waiting 90 days for a payment on a big project, followed by days of international settlement and spiraling fees, it can be devastating for a small business.
Particularly in the B2B world, having a well run global invoicing and payment workflow makes all the difference. It allows you to issue invoices efficiently with accurate payment information. In addition, it enables businesses to pay in their preferred currency and method without crushing fees.
Something that Acctual is specifically designed to do.
3. Recurring payments and retainers
Many freelancers and consultants work exclusively in international markets. For example, it's common for businesses in the US and the UK to hire remote workers in South Africa. It offers access to English speaking talent for lower hourly costs.
But if you're a remote worker like this, you need a way to set up retainers and recurring payments to make sure you get paid on time every week or month. The downside is it's not as easy as setting up a normal direct debit or bank transfer.
Payment systems between countries are often incompatible. Plus, you'll get slapped with the traditional issues we've discussed above.
Technology is helping to solve this problem with many payment platforms taking care of the behind-the-scenes work or offering multicurrency accounts with transparent FX rates for efficiency.
However, these platforms can be limiting, still have hidden fees and often require the payee to have an account on those platforms.
Again, Acctual avoids all of these problems, allowing you to take payments in any currency and have it arrive in your preferred bank account or digital wallet, all without hidden fees or sneaky currency conversion markups.
4. Internal money transfers
If you're working internationally, you'll also run into the problem of managing funds in different currencies. You might have bank accounts open in different markets or use platforms like Wise. Both require you to juggle multicurrency accounts.
When you’re working in multiple currencies and accounts, you’ll regularly need to transfer money between them. You’ll need to ensure cash flow, meet payment commitments and perform dozens of other business operations across your accounts. It’s a recipe for chaos that, if left unchecked, can cost a business thousands in fees and efficiency costs.
To manage internal organization money transfers effectively, you need systems, technology and accounting processes for moving funds from one currency to another. It may seem easy, but it adds an extra layer of admin.
Adding to this, it leaves you open to potential financial and tax regulations in currencies where the accounts exist.
How to accept international payments
So now you understand why and where global payments come into business. Let's talk about how.
There's a myriad of different options available now, from traditional payment networks to online payment platforms to cryptocurrency.
1. Bank transfers (Swift, BIC, IBAN)
You can use traditional payment rails for international transfers. There are clear mechanisms that allow banks to communicate and transfer funds.
For example, SWIFT is a route for correspondent banking networks, while IBAN and BIC codes provide standardization for global banking.
Traditional banking is the safe choice and tends to come with more protections and security checks. But it's outdated. Fees are high, often costing $50 or more. And it can take days, if not weeks, for money to reach its final destination.
It's not optimized for internet speed global commerce.
2. Card payments (Visa, Mastercard, Amex)
If you want to receive international payments, then you can offer card payments to your customers and clients. You will, however, need extra technology on top of your bank account.
This requires a payment processor that takes the card details of your customer and issues the transaction.
If you're working cross currency, then card payments can get expensive with cross border transactions incurring fees of anywhere between 1 and -3%.
As the receiver, you might not often see that fee. But for your customers, they are likely to incur the cost on their credit card. That can make you uncompetitive in the market and leave a bad taste in the mouth of customers.
Adding to this, while authorization happens in seconds, the settlement (aka the money arriving in your bank) can take one to three business days.
So it is a convenient option, particularly for ecommerce and online sales, but that comes at a cost. If you want to use credit card payments for your business, there are well known options including Stripe and PayPal or Acctual offers payment options for easy client invoice settlement.
3. Online Payment Platforms (Stripe, PayPal, Wise, Acctual)
The solution to all of this antiquated banking technology, high fees and slow settlement times is technology.
PayPal is arguably the market leader, certainly the most well known brand when it comes to digital payments. But it's up against tough competition in recent years, particularly with the likes of Stripe, Wise and Acctual. They offer flexibility for cross border payments.
In short, they allow you to set up accounts in dozens of different currencies, even giving you banking details in specific countries. For example, a business in the US could open an account in Australia and accept AUD into an Australian dollar currency account on Wise.
You'll also get a large selection of payment options. For example, Stripe is optimized to accept credit card payments for ecommerce businesses.
These types of platforms are purpose-built for global internet commerce. They handle everything from compliance to fraud detection to multicurrency complexities.
On the downside, there can be hidden fees. PayPal is notorious for high FX markups, holding funds for weeks and adding withdrawal fees. Plus, you might find it necessary to manage multicurrency accounts, adding in that annoying extra layer of admin.
Acctual offers even better international payment flexibility without the hidden fees. There's only a 1% fee on international payments. That's it.
Wherever you do business, it allows you to issue an invoice and provide your client's preferred payment choice, all without the need for multicurrency accounts.
Plus, you can even integrate cryptocurrency stablecoins in the same way for cross border payments.
4. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (USDT, USDC)
That brings us nicely onto digital currencies, aka cryptocurrencies. There's a specific type of crypto that's perfectly suited to receiving international payments. They're known as stablecoins.
The most well-known of these are USDT and USDC. These are digital coins pegged to the US dollar. It means one coin is always worth one dollar.
Now, the beauty of these is that they avoid all traditional payment systems and currencies. They run on blockchain technology in a peer to peer fashion. So one individual or entity can send funds directly to another. Everything is automatically handled by the blockchain network.
Settlement takes seconds with minimum fees, thanks to the avoidance of currency conversion and intermediary banks. Modern currency for modern business.
The only downside is the integration with traditional banking systems. It can be hard to actually transfer USDT into normal US dollars. You need to find an offramp to get the money in your bank account.
Acctual solves this problem instantly. Stablecoins are natively integrated into its invoicing and payment systems.
That means you could allow your client to pay you in USDT stablecoin and you receive the money straight into your fiat bank account. Or any other way you like, whether that's into your crypto wallet or vice versa. You could allow your client to pay in fiat dollars and receive the funds directly into your crypto wallet.
Everything's handled automatically in the background.
Receive international payments with Acctual
Acctual cuts through the complexity of accepting international payments, saving you time and money.
The platform is built to be the best way to receive international payments, eliminating high fees and slow transaction times.
You’ll benefit from the lowest industry fee at 1% with no hidden fees or aggressive currency markups. You can issue invoices with payment options for dozens of fiat and stablecoin currencies, giving you complete flexibility in making your payments.
So your customer could pay in fiat currency and you receive it in stablecoin in another country. Or vice versa.
For example, a US client can pay in US Dollars while a freelancer in Africa can receive USDT stablecoin directly in their crypto wallet, all on the same day.
The free, easy to use invoice generator is specifically designed for people wondering how to receive payment from international clients. In seconds, you can add all the necessary details, itemize service descriptions and select payment terms and methods.
You can even move company funds between internal bank accounts and wallets with everything automatically integrated into your accounting system, like Xero or QuickBooks.
Now go on… try it today, it’ll work: Get started in 2 minutes with a free account.
International payments made easy
Global customers are the new normal.
Even for small businesses and freelancers. In fact, your whole customer base could be international.
Digital connectivity is superb for accessing an exponentially expanding market, but it also introduces the complication of receiving international payments.
If your business can’t accept cross border payments, then you're excluding billions of potential customers.
It's no secret that the technology exists to take international payments. But many businesses still face hidden costs and friction in the process. The systems behind many international payments are expensive, opaque and downright slow.
So today we're going to unpack everything, including how to accept international payments, which payment methods suit your business model and how to avoid fees.
What makes international payments different from domestic payments?
If you're not used to making and receiving international payments, then it can quickly become frustrating. There's so much more to consider compared to domestic financial transactions.
Here's a quick breakdown of the differences:
1. Currency conversions that impact pricing and margins
When sending quotes and invoices, you might underestimate foreign exchange costs. That's the fee that's charged to transfer from one currency to another. For example, switching Euros into Dollars.
Many unsuspecting business owners are paying a 2-3% hidden fee when receiving international wire transfers. It doesn't sound like much, but across dozens or hundreds of transactions, it can be thousands of dollars.
And the thing that banks don't want you to know? It's almost invisible in your statement. You end up absorbing the loss or passing it on to customers, which hurts your competitiveness in the market.
So before you start with international payments, learn your provider's currency conversion costs and find someone with a reasonable rate or zero markup like Acctual.
2. Cross border fees and intermediary banks
For money to move from one country to another, it needs to pass through several middlemen. These are different payment processors and intermediary banks.
The payee and the recipient don't get to see this process. It's completely opaque. But under the hood, each middleman is taking their own cut.
Card networks like Visa and Mastercard can take 1% or more. Correspondent banks can be unpredictable, racking up charges of anywhere between $15 and $50, while the receiver's bank might charge a significant fee too. Everyone's skimming off the top.
This is particularly prevalent in traditional banking systems like wire transfers, whereas modern payment platforms can eliminate these intermediaries to help exclude these damaging fees.
3. Compliance Layers
Did you know you can't accept payments from anywhere in the world and move on? There needs to be continuous oversight and compliance.
Most developed nations enforce Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) laws on all payments. Plus, there are sanction screenings. That means your payments must be screened against OFAC lists, along with UN and EU sanctions.
In particular, large transactions over $10,000 can trigger enhanced due diligence. This all slows processing down. It’s another reason international payments can take days to clear compared to the instantaneous nature of domestic payments.
Compliance isn't something that falls directly on a business. Whichever payment processor you're using, it should be a standard part of their service.
4. Payment and Settlement Times
Depending on the payment corridor used, the time it takes for money to arrive in your account from an international payment can be drastically different. It can arrive almost instantly with modern payment platforms or take 5+ business days for more traditional methods.
The worst thing about it all is the opaque design. You can invoice a client, they can issue the payment and then the money disappears into the financial system, leaving you in the dark as to when payments will arrive. You end up hurriedly checking your bank every morning to see if the money has hit your account.
At minimum, it's unnecessary stress. At maximum, it can make cash flow management a nightmare for businesses with tight funds.
5. Hidden Complexities
We're all fluent at making payments in our own currency. It comes as second nature now. The click of a button, the tap of a card. Internationally, you can't just ‘send money’.
There are different payment corridors to navigate. Each corridor has its own rules, speeds, fees and regulations. So one payment method across Europe will fail in Asia.
And that's all before you're reconciling across exchange rate fluctuations, multiple transactions, accounting methods and shipping costs.
In layman's terms, a payment setup that works in one market might not work for all. It can be hard to find a one size fits all approach to international payments. That's why Acctual was born, to handle everything for you without the hidden fees.
The use cases: When and why businesses accept global payments
When building your international payment workflow, you need to highlight every area in your business that needs global payment coverage.
This might be simple if you sell one product, to one market, in one channel. But if you're selling multiple services and products across several markets, then things get complicated.
Here are some business use cases to think about for your international payments:
1. Ecommerce selling abroad
Ecommerce spans several sectors: D2C, marketplaces, subscription and wholesale. Just look at how many different sectors Amazon covers.
Even though it's become a mature market, ecommerce is still growing at around an 8% compound annual growth rate, expected to hit $11.4 trillion by 2029.
The sector spans almost every market: China, the US, India, Latin America and Asia. But payment preferences vary widely by region. For example, digital wallets dominate in China, while the UK relies heavily on debit and credit card payments.
As a business, you need to understand that cross border ecommerce conversion rates drop aggressively if local payment methods aren't offered. You need to allow people to pay in their preferred local way.
And that includes D2C products, B2B services and even freelancers selling digital products, which brings us nicely onto service businesses.
2. Service businesses working with overseas clients
By far the biggest problem for service providers like agencies, consultants and freelancers is chasing late payments. They're often at the mercy of large companies' payment terms or get shunted to the bottom of the list when it comes to fulfilling invoices.
If you're stuck waiting 90 days for a payment on a big project, followed by days of international settlement and spiraling fees, it can be devastating for a small business.
Particularly in the B2B world, having a well run global invoicing and payment workflow makes all the difference. It allows you to issue invoices efficiently with accurate payment information. In addition, it enables businesses to pay in their preferred currency and method without crushing fees.
Something that Acctual is specifically designed to do.
3. Recurring payments and retainers
Many freelancers and consultants work exclusively in international markets. For example, it's common for businesses in the US and the UK to hire remote workers in South Africa. It offers access to English speaking talent for lower hourly costs.
But if you're a remote worker like this, you need a way to set up retainers and recurring payments to make sure you get paid on time every week or month. The downside is it's not as easy as setting up a normal direct debit or bank transfer.
Payment systems between countries are often incompatible. Plus, you'll get slapped with the traditional issues we've discussed above.
Technology is helping to solve this problem with many payment platforms taking care of the behind-the-scenes work or offering multicurrency accounts with transparent FX rates for efficiency.
However, these platforms can be limiting, still have hidden fees and often require the payee to have an account on those platforms.
Again, Acctual avoids all of these problems, allowing you to take payments in any currency and have it arrive in your preferred bank account or digital wallet, all without hidden fees or sneaky currency conversion markups.
4. Internal money transfers
If you're working internationally, you'll also run into the problem of managing funds in different currencies. You might have bank accounts open in different markets or use platforms like Wise. Both require you to juggle multicurrency accounts.
When you’re working in multiple currencies and accounts, you’ll regularly need to transfer money between them. You’ll need to ensure cash flow, meet payment commitments and perform dozens of other business operations across your accounts. It’s a recipe for chaos that, if left unchecked, can cost a business thousands in fees and efficiency costs.
To manage internal organization money transfers effectively, you need systems, technology and accounting processes for moving funds from one currency to another. It may seem easy, but it adds an extra layer of admin.
Adding to this, it leaves you open to potential financial and tax regulations in currencies where the accounts exist.
How to accept international payments
So now you understand why and where global payments come into business. Let's talk about how.
There's a myriad of different options available now, from traditional payment networks to online payment platforms to cryptocurrency.
1. Bank transfers (Swift, BIC, IBAN)
You can use traditional payment rails for international transfers. There are clear mechanisms that allow banks to communicate and transfer funds.
For example, SWIFT is a route for correspondent banking networks, while IBAN and BIC codes provide standardization for global banking.
Traditional banking is the safe choice and tends to come with more protections and security checks. But it's outdated. Fees are high, often costing $50 or more. And it can take days, if not weeks, for money to reach its final destination.
It's not optimized for internet speed global commerce.
2. Card payments (Visa, Mastercard, Amex)
If you want to receive international payments, then you can offer card payments to your customers and clients. You will, however, need extra technology on top of your bank account.
This requires a payment processor that takes the card details of your customer and issues the transaction.
If you're working cross currency, then card payments can get expensive with cross border transactions incurring fees of anywhere between 1 and -3%.
As the receiver, you might not often see that fee. But for your customers, they are likely to incur the cost on their credit card. That can make you uncompetitive in the market and leave a bad taste in the mouth of customers.
Adding to this, while authorization happens in seconds, the settlement (aka the money arriving in your bank) can take one to three business days.
So it is a convenient option, particularly for ecommerce and online sales, but that comes at a cost. If you want to use credit card payments for your business, there are well known options including Stripe and PayPal or Acctual offers payment options for easy client invoice settlement.
3. Online Payment Platforms (Stripe, PayPal, Wise, Acctual)
The solution to all of this antiquated banking technology, high fees and slow settlement times is technology.
PayPal is arguably the market leader, certainly the most well known brand when it comes to digital payments. But it's up against tough competition in recent years, particularly with the likes of Stripe, Wise and Acctual. They offer flexibility for cross border payments.
In short, they allow you to set up accounts in dozens of different currencies, even giving you banking details in specific countries. For example, a business in the US could open an account in Australia and accept AUD into an Australian dollar currency account on Wise.
You'll also get a large selection of payment options. For example, Stripe is optimized to accept credit card payments for ecommerce businesses.
These types of platforms are purpose-built for global internet commerce. They handle everything from compliance to fraud detection to multicurrency complexities.
On the downside, there can be hidden fees. PayPal is notorious for high FX markups, holding funds for weeks and adding withdrawal fees. Plus, you might find it necessary to manage multicurrency accounts, adding in that annoying extra layer of admin.
Acctual offers even better international payment flexibility without the hidden fees. There's only a 1% fee on international payments. That's it.
Wherever you do business, it allows you to issue an invoice and provide your client's preferred payment choice, all without the need for multicurrency accounts.
Plus, you can even integrate cryptocurrency stablecoins in the same way for cross border payments.
4. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (USDT, USDC)
That brings us nicely onto digital currencies, aka cryptocurrencies. There's a specific type of crypto that's perfectly suited to receiving international payments. They're known as stablecoins.
The most well-known of these are USDT and USDC. These are digital coins pegged to the US dollar. It means one coin is always worth one dollar.
Now, the beauty of these is that they avoid all traditional payment systems and currencies. They run on blockchain technology in a peer to peer fashion. So one individual or entity can send funds directly to another. Everything is automatically handled by the blockchain network.
Settlement takes seconds with minimum fees, thanks to the avoidance of currency conversion and intermediary banks. Modern currency for modern business.
The only downside is the integration with traditional banking systems. It can be hard to actually transfer USDT into normal US dollars. You need to find an offramp to get the money in your bank account.
Acctual solves this problem instantly. Stablecoins are natively integrated into its invoicing and payment systems.
That means you could allow your client to pay you in USDT stablecoin and you receive the money straight into your fiat bank account. Or any other way you like, whether that's into your crypto wallet or vice versa. You could allow your client to pay in fiat dollars and receive the funds directly into your crypto wallet.
Everything's handled automatically in the background.
Receive international payments with Acctual
Acctual cuts through the complexity of accepting international payments, saving you time and money.
The platform is built to be the best way to receive international payments, eliminating high fees and slow transaction times.
You’ll benefit from the lowest industry fee at 1% with no hidden fees or aggressive currency markups. You can issue invoices with payment options for dozens of fiat and stablecoin currencies, giving you complete flexibility in making your payments.
So your customer could pay in fiat currency and you receive it in stablecoin in another country. Or vice versa.
For example, a US client can pay in US Dollars while a freelancer in Africa can receive USDT stablecoin directly in their crypto wallet, all on the same day.
The free, easy to use invoice generator is specifically designed for people wondering how to receive payment from international clients. In seconds, you can add all the necessary details, itemize service descriptions and select payment terms and methods.
You can even move company funds between internal bank accounts and wallets with everything automatically integrated into your accounting system, like Xero or QuickBooks.
Now go on… try it today, it’ll work: Get started in 2 minutes with a free account.
International payments made easy
Global customers are the new normal.
Even for small businesses and freelancers. In fact, your whole customer base could be international.
Digital connectivity is superb for accessing an exponentially expanding market, but it also introduces the complication of receiving international payments.
If your business can’t accept cross border payments, then you're excluding billions of potential customers.
It's no secret that the technology exists to take international payments. But many businesses still face hidden costs and friction in the process. The systems behind many international payments are expensive, opaque and downright slow.
So today we're going to unpack everything, including how to accept international payments, which payment methods suit your business model and how to avoid fees.
What makes international payments different from domestic payments?
If you're not used to making and receiving international payments, then it can quickly become frustrating. There's so much more to consider compared to domestic financial transactions.
Here's a quick breakdown of the differences:
1. Currency conversions that impact pricing and margins
When sending quotes and invoices, you might underestimate foreign exchange costs. That's the fee that's charged to transfer from one currency to another. For example, switching Euros into Dollars.
Many unsuspecting business owners are paying a 2-3% hidden fee when receiving international wire transfers. It doesn't sound like much, but across dozens or hundreds of transactions, it can be thousands of dollars.
And the thing that banks don't want you to know? It's almost invisible in your statement. You end up absorbing the loss or passing it on to customers, which hurts your competitiveness in the market.
So before you start with international payments, learn your provider's currency conversion costs and find someone with a reasonable rate or zero markup like Acctual.
2. Cross border fees and intermediary banks
For money to move from one country to another, it needs to pass through several middlemen. These are different payment processors and intermediary banks.
The payee and the recipient don't get to see this process. It's completely opaque. But under the hood, each middleman is taking their own cut.
Card networks like Visa and Mastercard can take 1% or more. Correspondent banks can be unpredictable, racking up charges of anywhere between $15 and $50, while the receiver's bank might charge a significant fee too. Everyone's skimming off the top.
This is particularly prevalent in traditional banking systems like wire transfers, whereas modern payment platforms can eliminate these intermediaries to help exclude these damaging fees.
3. Compliance Layers
Did you know you can't accept payments from anywhere in the world and move on? There needs to be continuous oversight and compliance.
Most developed nations enforce Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) laws on all payments. Plus, there are sanction screenings. That means your payments must be screened against OFAC lists, along with UN and EU sanctions.
In particular, large transactions over $10,000 can trigger enhanced due diligence. This all slows processing down. It’s another reason international payments can take days to clear compared to the instantaneous nature of domestic payments.
Compliance isn't something that falls directly on a business. Whichever payment processor you're using, it should be a standard part of their service.
4. Payment and Settlement Times
Depending on the payment corridor used, the time it takes for money to arrive in your account from an international payment can be drastically different. It can arrive almost instantly with modern payment platforms or take 5+ business days for more traditional methods.
The worst thing about it all is the opaque design. You can invoice a client, they can issue the payment and then the money disappears into the financial system, leaving you in the dark as to when payments will arrive. You end up hurriedly checking your bank every morning to see if the money has hit your account.
At minimum, it's unnecessary stress. At maximum, it can make cash flow management a nightmare for businesses with tight funds.
5. Hidden Complexities
We're all fluent at making payments in our own currency. It comes as second nature now. The click of a button, the tap of a card. Internationally, you can't just ‘send money’.
There are different payment corridors to navigate. Each corridor has its own rules, speeds, fees and regulations. So one payment method across Europe will fail in Asia.
And that's all before you're reconciling across exchange rate fluctuations, multiple transactions, accounting methods and shipping costs.
In layman's terms, a payment setup that works in one market might not work for all. It can be hard to find a one size fits all approach to international payments. That's why Acctual was born, to handle everything for you without the hidden fees.
The use cases: When and why businesses accept global payments
When building your international payment workflow, you need to highlight every area in your business that needs global payment coverage.
This might be simple if you sell one product, to one market, in one channel. But if you're selling multiple services and products across several markets, then things get complicated.
Here are some business use cases to think about for your international payments:
1. Ecommerce selling abroad
Ecommerce spans several sectors: D2C, marketplaces, subscription and wholesale. Just look at how many different sectors Amazon covers.
Even though it's become a mature market, ecommerce is still growing at around an 8% compound annual growth rate, expected to hit $11.4 trillion by 2029.
The sector spans almost every market: China, the US, India, Latin America and Asia. But payment preferences vary widely by region. For example, digital wallets dominate in China, while the UK relies heavily on debit and credit card payments.
As a business, you need to understand that cross border ecommerce conversion rates drop aggressively if local payment methods aren't offered. You need to allow people to pay in their preferred local way.
And that includes D2C products, B2B services and even freelancers selling digital products, which brings us nicely onto service businesses.
2. Service businesses working with overseas clients
By far the biggest problem for service providers like agencies, consultants and freelancers is chasing late payments. They're often at the mercy of large companies' payment terms or get shunted to the bottom of the list when it comes to fulfilling invoices.
If you're stuck waiting 90 days for a payment on a big project, followed by days of international settlement and spiraling fees, it can be devastating for a small business.
Particularly in the B2B world, having a well run global invoicing and payment workflow makes all the difference. It allows you to issue invoices efficiently with accurate payment information. In addition, it enables businesses to pay in their preferred currency and method without crushing fees.
Something that Acctual is specifically designed to do.
3. Recurring payments and retainers
Many freelancers and consultants work exclusively in international markets. For example, it's common for businesses in the US and the UK to hire remote workers in South Africa. It offers access to English speaking talent for lower hourly costs.
But if you're a remote worker like this, you need a way to set up retainers and recurring payments to make sure you get paid on time every week or month. The downside is it's not as easy as setting up a normal direct debit or bank transfer.
Payment systems between countries are often incompatible. Plus, you'll get slapped with the traditional issues we've discussed above.
Technology is helping to solve this problem with many payment platforms taking care of the behind-the-scenes work or offering multicurrency accounts with transparent FX rates for efficiency.
However, these platforms can be limiting, still have hidden fees and often require the payee to have an account on those platforms.
Again, Acctual avoids all of these problems, allowing you to take payments in any currency and have it arrive in your preferred bank account or digital wallet, all without hidden fees or sneaky currency conversion markups.
4. Internal money transfers
If you're working internationally, you'll also run into the problem of managing funds in different currencies. You might have bank accounts open in different markets or use platforms like Wise. Both require you to juggle multicurrency accounts.
When you’re working in multiple currencies and accounts, you’ll regularly need to transfer money between them. You’ll need to ensure cash flow, meet payment commitments and perform dozens of other business operations across your accounts. It’s a recipe for chaos that, if left unchecked, can cost a business thousands in fees and efficiency costs.
To manage internal organization money transfers effectively, you need systems, technology and accounting processes for moving funds from one currency to another. It may seem easy, but it adds an extra layer of admin.
Adding to this, it leaves you open to potential financial and tax regulations in currencies where the accounts exist.
How to accept international payments
So now you understand why and where global payments come into business. Let's talk about how.
There's a myriad of different options available now, from traditional payment networks to online payment platforms to cryptocurrency.
1. Bank transfers (Swift, BIC, IBAN)
You can use traditional payment rails for international transfers. There are clear mechanisms that allow banks to communicate and transfer funds.
For example, SWIFT is a route for correspondent banking networks, while IBAN and BIC codes provide standardization for global banking.
Traditional banking is the safe choice and tends to come with more protections and security checks. But it's outdated. Fees are high, often costing $50 or more. And it can take days, if not weeks, for money to reach its final destination.
It's not optimized for internet speed global commerce.
2. Card payments (Visa, Mastercard, Amex)
If you want to receive international payments, then you can offer card payments to your customers and clients. You will, however, need extra technology on top of your bank account.
This requires a payment processor that takes the card details of your customer and issues the transaction.
If you're working cross currency, then card payments can get expensive with cross border transactions incurring fees of anywhere between 1 and -3%.
As the receiver, you might not often see that fee. But for your customers, they are likely to incur the cost on their credit card. That can make you uncompetitive in the market and leave a bad taste in the mouth of customers.
Adding to this, while authorization happens in seconds, the settlement (aka the money arriving in your bank) can take one to three business days.
So it is a convenient option, particularly for ecommerce and online sales, but that comes at a cost. If you want to use credit card payments for your business, there are well known options including Stripe and PayPal or Acctual offers payment options for easy client invoice settlement.
3. Online Payment Platforms (Stripe, PayPal, Wise, Acctual)
The solution to all of this antiquated banking technology, high fees and slow settlement times is technology.
PayPal is arguably the market leader, certainly the most well known brand when it comes to digital payments. But it's up against tough competition in recent years, particularly with the likes of Stripe, Wise and Acctual. They offer flexibility for cross border payments.
In short, they allow you to set up accounts in dozens of different currencies, even giving you banking details in specific countries. For example, a business in the US could open an account in Australia and accept AUD into an Australian dollar currency account on Wise.
You'll also get a large selection of payment options. For example, Stripe is optimized to accept credit card payments for ecommerce businesses.
These types of platforms are purpose-built for global internet commerce. They handle everything from compliance to fraud detection to multicurrency complexities.
On the downside, there can be hidden fees. PayPal is notorious for high FX markups, holding funds for weeks and adding withdrawal fees. Plus, you might find it necessary to manage multicurrency accounts, adding in that annoying extra layer of admin.
Acctual offers even better international payment flexibility without the hidden fees. There's only a 1% fee on international payments. That's it.
Wherever you do business, it allows you to issue an invoice and provide your client's preferred payment choice, all without the need for multicurrency accounts.
Plus, you can even integrate cryptocurrency stablecoins in the same way for cross border payments.
4. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (USDT, USDC)
That brings us nicely onto digital currencies, aka cryptocurrencies. There's a specific type of crypto that's perfectly suited to receiving international payments. They're known as stablecoins.
The most well-known of these are USDT and USDC. These are digital coins pegged to the US dollar. It means one coin is always worth one dollar.
Now, the beauty of these is that they avoid all traditional payment systems and currencies. They run on blockchain technology in a peer to peer fashion. So one individual or entity can send funds directly to another. Everything is automatically handled by the blockchain network.
Settlement takes seconds with minimum fees, thanks to the avoidance of currency conversion and intermediary banks. Modern currency for modern business.
The only downside is the integration with traditional banking systems. It can be hard to actually transfer USDT into normal US dollars. You need to find an offramp to get the money in your bank account.
Acctual solves this problem instantly. Stablecoins are natively integrated into its invoicing and payment systems.
That means you could allow your client to pay you in USDT stablecoin and you receive the money straight into your fiat bank account. Or any other way you like, whether that's into your crypto wallet or vice versa. You could allow your client to pay in fiat dollars and receive the funds directly into your crypto wallet.
Everything's handled automatically in the background.
Receive international payments with Acctual
Acctual cuts through the complexity of accepting international payments, saving you time and money.
The platform is built to be the best way to receive international payments, eliminating high fees and slow transaction times.
You’ll benefit from the lowest industry fee at 1% with no hidden fees or aggressive currency markups. You can issue invoices with payment options for dozens of fiat and stablecoin currencies, giving you complete flexibility in making your payments.
So your customer could pay in fiat currency and you receive it in stablecoin in another country. Or vice versa.
For example, a US client can pay in US Dollars while a freelancer in Africa can receive USDT stablecoin directly in their crypto wallet, all on the same day.
The free, easy to use invoice generator is specifically designed for people wondering how to receive payment from international clients. In seconds, you can add all the necessary details, itemize service descriptions and select payment terms and methods.
You can even move company funds between internal bank accounts and wallets with everything automatically integrated into your accounting system, like Xero or QuickBooks.
Now go on… try it today, it’ll work: Get started in 2 minutes with a free account.
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Love you, pay me
Get paid “same day” by sending customers the most flexible invoice on the planet.
Love you, pay me
Get paid “same day” by sending customers the most flexible invoice on the planet.
Love you, pay me
Get paid “same day” by sending customers the most flexible invoice on the planet.
Love you, pay me
Get paid “same day” by sending customers the most flexible invoice on the planet.
