Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

jamesmaskell.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 182 posts

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#141

Post by blibble »

shtylman wrote: post #132

You should look into bitcoin (at least know about it and how it can help you as a merchant). Any payment company that deals with credit cards is not just a payment company but a fraud detection service; at least that is what it should be selling themselves as. Fighting CC fraud (and bank transfer fraud) is a challenge as the system was not designed for the digital space.

it's far too difficult to acquire them at the moment for normal citizens, at least in the UK.

I spent at least 4 hours trying to legitimately acquire bitcoins to purchase some pretty physical coins from https://www.casascius.com before giving up.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#142

Post by justincormack »

petercooper wrote: post #83
nodata wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is using Amex? Corporates?

In my experience, a lot of people who work in large companies who have authorization to spend decent money do. They can often get hold of a Visa or Mastercard instead but it seems to be more hassle to get authorized by a higher-up. Personally, I have an Amex too and I'm not rich or special but maybe it's different in the UK. I use it because I get a ton of airmiles and Amex never seems to get rejected or stopped for…

It is different in the UK. Amex is not widely accepted. The charges to the merchant are very high.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#144

Post by mootothemax »

theallan wrote: post #136
mootothemax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All B2B sales to EC customers have no vat and are ‘outside the scope of UK vat’. Interesting. I was under the impression that EC B2B sales were zero-rated only for companies that are VAT-registered. This is why we grab and validate a VAT number for each EC company that we issue an invoice for. That said, God only knows how this might tie into the living hell which is Polish bureaucracy.

You need to be able to prove that the purchase is B2B rather than B2C, and the easiest way of doing that is to get the buyer's VAT number. You could still do B2B without a VAT number, but you need to be able to prove that the buyer was a business if the tax man asks about it.

Ah, ok, thanks, that makes sense :)

(well - "sense" is relative when it comes to all these VAT rules...)

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#145

Post by calpaterson »

> [Paymill] also require some business information and identification from you, but this does not appear to be particularly stringent

Actually, speaking from personal experience, it is particularly stringent. I had to give up in the end because the bureaucracy was taking too long.

From memory, you need a tax identification number, your VAT identification number a scan of your passport, to display your name and home address on your website and you need to post it all to Munich. I suppose this doesn't sound like too much but in the UK you have no reason to have a tax identification number unless you're self-employed and already trading. In the UK you don't have a VAT id unless you're making £77k. Outside Germany showing your home address on the web is considered a bit crazy. Consider now that if you're trying to get Paymill to authorise you are probably are not trading yet. It's not that appealing and I would recommend against it unless you have time to spend exchanging emails with customer service representatives who have a poor command of English.

Paypal's (admittedly lame and APIless) method of payment acceptance is to copy and paste a button.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#146

Post by akshxy »

jarospisak wrote: post #75
akshxy wrote: post #27

wow, this post has made my day. Can anybody recommend payment gateways in Finland?

Have you checked https://www.maksuturva.fi ?

yes I have checked, planning to use it also. But its always nice to ask the real users of the product. :)

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#148

Post by JoelJacobson »

Xylakant wrote: post #71
bad_user wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain a little bit more about what's the problem with debit cards in Europe? I have a MasterCard debit card with which I never, ever had problems making payments and I have made such payments, either direct or through PayPal, Google Wallet or iTunes. Before this I had a Visa debit card issued by the same bank (Groupe Société Générale). Before this I had another debit card issued by another bank. All of th…

A mastercard debit card works much like a credit card. In germany for example, your standard "debit card" is your banks card and in online transactions, you just enter bank account and the banks identifier. It's a legacy way of paying that dates back to the eurocheques. It's comparable to the Card Bleue in France which is a system that exists pretty much in France only. This fragments the market.

You mean Sofort, payment-network.com?

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#149

Post by floris »

burgreblast wrote: post #140

I don't understand why you would consider using Braintree in Europe (or anywhere) vs. going to Adyen directly. The Adyen guys are smart, their technical platform is simple and robust, and unlike the Stripe/Square/Braintree guys, Adyen actually does the processing so they can offer better rates and are suitable for huge volume. About the only downside is that "At-jien"'s b2b marketing is pretty terrible. They have som…

It's surprising to see how little people mention Adyen in this thread. One of the big benefits of Adyen is that they also supports many more payment options besides credit cards. For example: Paypal, iDeal, Card Blue & SOFORT Überweisung. If you're serious about receiving payments from consumers in Europe, supporting these is pretty much a necessity.
Post reply on HN