Sole Proprietorship Receiving Customer Credit Card Payments

[KrisG]

Hi,

My Thai husband and I have a sole proprietorship business set up in his name. We've had it for about 3 years. All of our customers pay from o/s and until now have done so into my o/s account, which I've then transferred over to our Thai account. But...now with the dive in the Aussie Dollar, we are losing all our profit on the transfer, so we desperately need to find a way to receive payments from our clients in THB, directly into Thailand. I've spoken to a few of the banks but it appears (and I could be wrong here) that we can't get facilities to receive credit card payments from our clients as we're just a sole proprietorship.

Does anyone know if it's possible to get customer payments directly into Thailand (we already receive some payments via bank transfer but it's not ideal for most of our clients), by credit or debit card with just a sole proprietorship. If so, which banks offer this and what's the capital required to set it up.

Thanks for any help

[simon43]

Hi, a good online solution is to use Thaiepay (www.thaiepay.com). You can create a process on your website to allow your customers from overseas to pay whatever amount is due. Thaiepay will start you off with Visa and Amex, and then add Mastercard after a few months of successful trading, (Mastercard has very strict rules...). Then Thaiepay will credit your Thai bank account on the 10th of every month.

I use it for my online hotel booking and have never had any problems with them.

Thaiepay charge about 2,900 baht per year for their credit-card payment service and then 3-4% per transaction.

Also - if you are not sure how to integrate your website payment with Thaiepay then I can do this for you (I am a software engineer, as well as a hotel owner!). Just PM me.

Simon

Edited October 25, 2008 by simon43

[KrisG]

I use it for my online hotel booking and have never had any problems with them.

Simon

Thanks Simon,

That's really helpful. I'd heard of Thaiepay before from a friend who uses it but she'd had some problems with payments bouncing back to clients so I was a bit wary. Do you use it to receive payments or to make payments?

[simon43]

Hi, I use them to receive payments.

As for 'bouncing' of payments, indeed this does occur sometimes. Thaiepay operate a stringent policy about online payments, in order to minimise fraud. If the payee provides incorrect details, (such as wrong registered address for their credit-card), then Thaiepay will ask the payee to fax a copy of the card directly to their office. Also, if the payee commences the payment from one computer IP address, but then doesn't complete that payment process and goes to try again from a different computer IP address, then Thaiepay will also flag it as a potential fraud issue.

Generally, I have no problems with Thaiepay, and it's good that they have stringent fraud checks.

They always pay me each month exactly on time - never even 1 day late.

Simon

[monty]

I'm using paysbuy , also Thai based, never had any problems with them.

No fixed fees, only a percentage per transaction.

They start with a limited amount you can withdraw to your local Thai bank but if you need it increased you can do this by giving more real life info, such as copy ID card, utility bill, or in the case of a sole trader, you last tax payment slip...

[cmsally]

Just to resurrect this thread, anyone had any problems with Thaiepay. I am thinking of setting up an account with them - using their epaylink service.

Anyone with any experience on this!! Good or bad

[simon43]

Hi - I'm still using Thaiepay, no problems at all with them, very happy customer

Simon

[cmsally]

Hi, thank you for that feedback. I have just started and so far so good. How long does it normally take for them to enable the Mastercard payment option. At the moment I have just Visa and Am Ex?

[kudroz]

Simon, why not use Kasikorn Bank credit card gateway over Thaiepay? I'm looking to get setup with either one of them.

[simon43]

Thaiepay will 'switch on' Mastercard payments after about 3 months of your Thaiepay account running ok without any chargebacks.

I have a Kasikorn credit-card swipe machine in the hotel which works fine. When we asked to get an online credit-card acceptance facility they told us that we had to make a deposit of 200,000 baht into our existing Kasikorn account, and to maintain that minimum balance until we finally closed the bank account in the future.

So I told them (politely) to stuff it and I stayed with Thaiepay...

Simon

[cmsally]

Well that's better than SCB they wanted 2 million in cash deposit (fixed).

[Remix4]

Simon, why not use Kasikorn Bank credit card gateway over Thaiepay? I'm looking to get setup with either one of them.

When I tried Kasikorn for a new business they required 3 years of accounts .... useful. Only downside with thaiepay is that the merchant account is not in your name plus the payments to you take approx. 1 month.