Finance Wanted.

By Jennifer L Loganathan

Offshore merchant accounts aren't necessarily high risk merchant accounts. As the global village gets smaller, smart businesses are looking outside their home countries for their credit card processing needs. Merchant service providers specialize in finding both, their domestic and international customers offshore merchant accounts. While a stigma has been associated with these kinds of accounts, they are very much in the mainstream and sought after by savvy merchants who really benefit from the multitude of e-services that offshore banks specialize in; where as their hometown bank may not offer, doesn't have proficiency in and maybe just doesn't want to bother with.

As a lot of us get our initial information on many subjects from the television or at the movies, there is a stigma associated with many terms that lead us to form opinions about terms, industries and the people that make up those industries. One stigmatic term we've all heard about at some point or another is, "Offshore banking". Immediately we are trained to think that something is illicit or not on the up and up; perhaps there is a man in a white suit with dark sunglasses that picks up the money in a stainless steel briefcase, that doubles as a sub-machine gun of course and drops it off at the offshore bank (probably in the Caymens). Now that I have your attention, here's one more thing you need to know about offshore banking; it's not bad, in fact it's probably more commonplace than you think! An offshore merchant account is simply an account set up with a bank outside your home country that processes your credit card transactions domestic or international, while complying with the host countries' cardholder regulations to avoid any cross-border acquiring issues.

In the era of the internet which brings buyers and sellers together with little more trouble than a time zone difference, many merchants are beginning to see the value in expanding their market internationally. This is the next logical step largely due to the amount of information available internationally, where products and services that we would never hear about may now be available at the stroke of a key. This same concept is catching on to merchants that may be doing business internationally, but processing all of their credit card transactions at the bank down the street. Some of the what these merchants are finding out is that their "card not present transactions" are putting them in a high risk category, even though they may be selling homemade fishing lures in their store, out of their catalog and of course on the internet. They're paying a higher rate because of this and their bank may have required a security deposit for acquiring their merchant account, due to the high risk factor, and they are afraid of chargebacks. In addition to all of this, it may be impossible at all to obtain a merchant account if your business isn't adequately established. If you're reading this and are a little turned off by some of what happens to merchants regarding their domestic merchant account woes, keep reading, it can only get better from here.

Today's business owner is probably finding success internationally, so the next natural step is to look offshore for their banking needs. Some of the reasons may be that they do a lot of business internationally, low or no security deposits and multi currency processing. Not to mention tax benefits. While high risk and/or offshore merchant accounts may have higher rates associated with them, offshore banks for example in St. Kits, Germany and South Africa offer highly sought after services and competitive rates.

As more and more domestic merchants are looking into offshore merchant accounts, the offshore banking institutions are getting more competitive for US and Western European business. The pieces of the pie are just getting smaller and everyone wants a piece.

Jennifer Loganathan is the President and CEO of Stradafee Limited an international merchant service provider. Stradafee is a retail and an electronic payments company specializing in global eCommerce and Internet merchant accounts. Merchant accounts make it possible for businesses to provide credit card processing for card present and card-not-present transactions. For more information on credit card processing visit http://www.stradafee.com