How To Make Sure Your Application Will Be Approved
You must be certain that you know exactly what you are getting when you submit an application. This is particularly important for Canadian and international merchants.
Getting a merchant account isn't always a walk in the park... or at least it hasn't been in the past. Traditionally, it has always been difficult and significantly more expensive for Canadian and international businesses to get a merchant account and accept credit cards online.
In the following section we will examine the problems that used to plague Canadian and international businesses, and how to avoid them. If you read this, you will be further ahead and better informed than most other Canadian and international businesses. Using this information, you will be able to make certain that you get the best rates possible.
Avoid The U.S Incorporation Problem!
If you have already begun your research for a merchant account, you may know that it can be difficult and costly for Canadian & international businesses to get a merchant account.
First you must understand why it is often so much harder for Canadian or international businesses to get a merchant account.
The short reason for this is because many Canadian banks have unreasonable, lofty requirements that must be met before they can approve any internet business for a merchant account.
Most Canadian banks consider internet transactions to be high risk. To counter this perceived risk, they often require detailed business plans, a mountain of paperwork, and huge up-front deposits. They make it virtually impossible for smaller and mid-sized businesses. Unfortunately, even if you have enough money for the large up-front deposits they require, the paperwork alone is still a daunting and time consuming process.
American banks are not so strict with their requirements, but they first require that you incorporate your business in the U.S.A -- and on top of that you also need to maintain a U.S business address and business bank account.
U.S incorporation is a huge expense, and further beyond that -- cost isn't the only problem. There is a huge amount of paperwork required for incorporation, and maintaining an ongoing business presence in the USA is clearly not the ideal way for a Canadian or international business to go about accepting credit cards.
Unfortunately some merchant account providers do not tell you this upfront.
Many U.S based merchant providers and payment gateways will assume that you know this, and it only comes up after you have applied. On top of that, once you are finally approved and your website goes live, you can only do your transactions in U.S dollars.
Up until now, it simply has not been very easy for Canadian and international businesses to process credit cards online.
We accept all Canadian and international businesses.
There are no special requirements. You do not require incorporation -- and we can approve you no matter what country you are in. You can even process transactions in nearly any currency from around the world.
Merchant-accounts.ca is a Canadian based business, and we pride ourselves on being the Canadian and international merchant specialists. Nobody makes it faster or easier to get started than we do. We include everything you need to accept credit cards, and make the entire process incredibly fast, easy, and stress-free.
On the next page we will look into the "industry standard" rates and fees charged by many merchant account providers -- and how to avoid most of them.