Austrian Citizen with North Macedonian company (low/mid risk) looking for payment gateway.

[Clear]

Hey guys, have been in here for some time and tried to apply what I found, but did not really get far. So maybe there is someone that can help with my situation.

I have a business, selling wellness light devices for at home use. Nothing interesting or risky. Started it under the umbrella of an Austrian company. It was like a 5min job to get accepted by Stripe and Paypal. Used these two for roughly a year. Now I moved the company to North Macedonia (personal and financial reasons... basically wanted to start an adventure ). Setting up the company and everything was super easy and I thought that getting a payment gateway would be as well.

Unfortunately it seems like gateways look really closely, because of the registration company and such. Have been declined by multiple gateways so far (I think it was mainly because 1) Country of incorporation + 2) New Business + 3) Not super easy to understand product )

Just plain simple credit card processing would be more than enough for now. (Visa, Mastercard)

So my question now is, do you have any suggestion on how to move forward? My thoughts/options I am thinking about are the following:


A) Getting a few other options of payment gateways that might take the company
B) Getting a second company that is able to process payments (eg UK LLP with North Macedonian Company as partner)
C) The official banking gateway in North Macedonia would accept my business but the problem now is 1) No inline implementation in Woocommerce + automatic conversion from USD to local currency all the time2) Would have to go to North Macedonia in person to sign the contract and that is not possible because of Covid ->so wait until travelling is possible again and then have an unsexy gateway


So, I hope that maybe some of you have an input on that and maybe I can find a swift solution -it would mean the world to me

 

[Sols]

Your main problem is that processors are restricted to the region they are in, so an EU processor cannot process Visa and Mastercard for merchants incorporated/located outside of EU/EEA.

The most common solution is to incorporate an EU company (Cyprus, Malta). Avoid UK due to Brexit. Same owner as the MK company. Then have someone experienced draft a payment agent agreement, under which the MK company appoints the EU company as payment agent. The EU company signs up with processors and opens an EMI or bank account. Funds are settled into the EU company's account. From there, you settle nearly all of it to the MK company but in order for the agreement to be in line with transfer pricing rules and other such regulations, you have to keep some small fraction of the money in the EU company.

Not all processors will be OK with this setup but there are enough of them that finding one shouldn't be an impossible task.

 

[Spinat]

C) The official banking gateway in North Macedonia would accept my business but the problem now is 1) No inline implementation in Woocommerce + automatic conversion from USD to local currency all the time2) Would have to go to North Macedonia in person to sign the contract and that is not possible because of Covid ->so wait until travelling is possible again and then have an unsexy gateway

seems to me to be your best option to avoid high fees and alot of troubles. Chances may be that you can get some sort of processing with 2checkout if you didn't tried them yet? Transferwise may also be able to help you and finally AdvCash may or may not be an option.