Question by : How easy is it to send international bank wires? Is it hassle free?
I want to accept payments in USD, CAD, GBP, and EURO so I thought of getting a multicurrency bank account. Can my customers simply go online into their accounts and make international wire transfers through their banks? That sounds pretty hassle free to me if they can do that.
Originally I was going to accept credit cards, but because my business requires deposits for building materials before the project can even be started this can cost me DEARLY if a theif tries to do a chargeback after the deposit has been used to buy the materials. So I’d rather decrease the possibility of fraud by using bank wires, but I know customers will only do it if it’s hassle free and they can do it at home.
Best answer:
Answer by Steve B
Doing international bank transfers (“SWIFT”) costs the average Brit. £25 a time .. only ‘in country’ (BACS) transfers are ‘free’.
When purchasing from the States, I typically use PayPal (it’s ‘hassle free’) for ebay (or anyone I have done business with before).
Otherwise I use a Credit Card. It’s a right pain, especially these days due to the massive amount of ‘Card Holder Not Present’ Fraud (for example, it’s typically impossible to specify a delivery address that is not the same as the address registered to the card holder) HOWEVER with Credit Card, so long as the payment is over £100, the Card Issuer is ‘jointly liable’ for the transaction if anything goes wrong & I know I can get my money back (lets be honest = builders are going bankrupt almost as fast as the smaller banks time right now).
What do you think? Answer below!