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Benefits of Accepting Different Currencies

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedFeb 20232 min read

As a small business owner, there are numerous challenges to expanding into markets overseas. Just one of the many considerations are whether or not you want to accept different currencies.

While this used to be a complex issue, involving exchange rate and data management issues, the process has become more and more streamlined over the years, making the accepting of different currencies easier than ever before.

In this post we’ll run through the benefits of accepting cross currency payments, including how it can lead to increase in sales and huge company growth.

Benefits of cross currency payments

No foreign transaction fees for customers

As a customer, buying things online in different countries incurs foreign transaction fees. This can be very off-putting, to the extent that customers will look elsewhere for their desired product or service. By accepting payments in different currencies, these foreign transaction fees are eliminated, making your business much more enticing to potential customers. And, bear in mind that satisfied customers tend to share the good news with their friends and family, meaning you could gain valuable word of mouth marketing to boot.

Customer loyalty

Seeing prices and the shopping cart in a local currency means customers are immediately able to comprehend the cost of goods or services relative to their own locality. This puts the customer at ease, and makes them much more likely to go ahead and pursue a purchase. Eliminating confusion surrounding prices as well as making customers at ease improves the experience all-round, in turn boosting customer loyalty.

Fewer chargebacks

When buying things online in different currencies, the likelihood of there being some confusion vis-a-vis the price is much higher. This means customers may refute payments, resulting in chargebacks for your business. This can negatively affect your reputation and injure cash flow.

Accepting payments in a customer’s local currency can help reduce the likelihood of this happening as it reduces payment confusion overall. This can save time, money and resources in your company.

Market differentiation

Accepting foreign currency payments can give your company the edge in a foreign market over any competitors. By and large customers prefer paying for goods in their local currency, they will therefore favor you over any competitors that don’t offer this.

On the other hand, if your competitors do accept foreign currency payments, you need to do the same to be able to compete on equal footing.

Reduces cart abandonment

According to data gathered by Statista, 13% of online shoppers will abandon their shopping if they see that prices are shown in a foreign currency. This is partly due to them not being able to perceive the real price in relative terms, and partly due to the expectation that they will have to pay foreign transaction fees when making the purchase.

By offering your customers the option to view prices in their own currency, you can prevent them abandoning the site and their cart before making it to checkout. This invariably means you’ll acquire more customers and receive more revenue.

Speed and convenience

When dealing with multi-currency payment processing, you will receive payments into a multi-currency account. This means the admin becomes much more straightforward because everything is in one place and you don’t need to juggle numerous accounts operating in different currencies.

In addition, while international payments are typically slower than domestic payments, operating in local currencies can help speed up the process as you’re using local payment networks.

Ultimately, accepting foreign currency payments can be a much simpler and more streamlined process for both the company and foreign customers.

Accepting international payments with GoCardless

GoCardless offers a global recurring payments network, enabling businesses to collect payments from more than 30 countries, seamlessly. Furthermore, GoCardless integrates with 200+ partners, including major invoicing software providers like Xero and QuickBooks.

We can help

GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.