I’ve begun researching online payment options for a new e-commerce
venture that I am planning.
In a nutshell - the payment options that are available to UAE merchants is dismal. As of the writing of this post, I have found the following. I will continue to update this list with my findings:
- Paypal. Everyone knows this one. It’s one of the better ones out there, but not without it’s detractors and hate sites. Problems: You can only withdraw funds to a US based bank account. For the life of me, I do not understand how this makes sense. How does a UAE base merchant open a US based bank account? Logic = none. In addition, your customers are billed in USD, not in AED.
- Mashreq Bank.
Currently looking into this one. Strangely there is absolutely no
information on their website about this. Then again, there never is
much on local sites anyway. I have been told by HSBC locally that
Mashreq Bank, Emirates NBD and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD)
are the only processors of credit cards in the country. Local
monopoly. - Etisalat Payment Gateway.
Currently awaiting more information from them. I have read that they
work with Emirates NBD and NBAD. However, going with them adds an
extra layer to your costs? - PIPS. Created by Prosum, a firm based out of Jebel Ali, PIPS stand for Prosum
Integrated PaySwitch. I have got in touch with them and am waiting
to hear back. Unfortunately there is limited information available on their corporate site aside from their vision to be the largest mobile payment processor in the region by 2010. Isn’t that now?
More when I have it. Fire away in the comments should you wish to. It’s a long journey of learning.
Update: I’ve posted a quick primer on Understanding Online Payments
in the UAE over at the JadoPado Blog, if you’re looking for a quick intro to how it’s all supposed to work! You may also want to check out The 2014 Edition: Online Payments in the UAE and the 2016 edition.
What about ePay or Google Checkout...
Hey Jig! As far as I can tell Google Checkout is US and UK only. ePay, assuming you're referring to the global payments firm and not the local one initiated by the Dubai Government, again they don't seem to support the UAE.
Perhaps this is the real business opportunity...
I think there is an opportunity there. However, considering the licensing environment in terms of the UAE Central Bank, the ability to obtain Foreign Exchange licenses and so on - this one will require some clout. Anything financial is tough.
I was told by HSBC that they have applied to become a credit card processor and a provider of merchant facilities. I am unsure whether they have received approval yet. If HSBC (who do everything under the sun interms of finance and insurance) aren't in the game yet - are the barriers to high for a start up?
Problem is HSBC is a foregn bank and i think UAE wants to keep its financial monopoly. If you have noticed non of the foreign banks offer merchant services or do they ? Everywhere you pay with your card i see mashreq or Network ... again similar Etislat Du scenario just for show perhaps i bet both NBD and Mashreq are owed within the same family. Whist the owners of network and mashreq getting ridiculously rich to the point that they can probably wipe their bums with 1000 aed notes ... they don't see that this strangles small business which are vital for economic growth in UAE.
Just out of curiosity, I decided to call Paypal up. From what I was told you can take payments into a uae bank account. Maybe I've missed something?
(apparently Sri Lanka is a "no" though).
Salams Ammar,
Mmm. Have a look at this: http://bit.ly/c2LUDu
I signed up for Merchant services with Paypal locally and as far as I can tell there isn't an option to add a local bank account.
If you scroll through that list and hit Singapore or Malaysia, you'll see that it allows you to withdraw to a local account as well as a US bank account.
It's strange to offer merchant services in the UAE and not allow you to bill in AED or withdraw to a local account. Go figure.
Hey Omar...stumbled apon you blog..small world eh. =)
In regard to payment gateways, http://www.2checkout.com/ is pretty effective for non paypal countries.
Hope it help.
Mustafa Kassim
Salams Mustafa,
Thanks for your comment and for stopping by! I looked at 2Checkout, I think it may be an interesting solution for businesses just getting off the ground - however 5% fees are steep, and I think it would be difficult to scale your business with their solution.
The other issue is currency - while they do have a number of options, unfortunately they don't do every single one yet!
I was wondering if you found a solution to accepting online payments in AED. Please let us know if you found something
Thanks
Ken
Hi Ken,
We're going with Network International - an arm of Emirates NBD for the time being. They don't quite have the card coverage and service offering that we want, but it's better than nothing.
I need to update this post, or write a newer one - will try to when I get some time!
Hi Omar
If you don't mind can you please update us with the fees Emirates NBD is charging and what credit cards are supported? Any reasons for not going with Mashreq Bank?
Hi Karan,
Apologies - I was meant to get around to doing another post on this, but I didn't get a chance.
It's actually Network International - which used to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Emirates NBD, but is now part owned by Abraaj - the private equity firm - they're charging us 3% + AED 2 per transaction. Card support includes Visa, Mastercard, JCB and Visa Debit.
I found Mashreq's rates to be higher and they just did not seem interested in taking our business on - on the other had Network International were really helpful in guiding us through the process - even though we had to find out a few things ourselves.
Give me a shout if you need any more information.
Ive been using Network international for 2 years now with no problems at all however i had to open a new company as i fell out with my business partner. Now they say they got new rules and need 30,000 USD collateral ... and they will pay it back only after 6months after closing the account. Really unhelpful and do not simply care.
Mashreq Bank was a bit better in communication but again from 2011 jan they got a new rule 15-25k usd colateral depending on how risky they think your business is. Mashreq offers 3.5% NBD used to give me 3% .
paypal is pointless in this country as it will only deposit funds to your credit card charging a 3% processing fee as well as exchange rate from USD to AED which will come out at around 6% in total. and i do even know what will happen if sumes go high the credit card company wont be happy about that.
its a nightmare here in UAE monopoly at its worst
have anyone tried bank of abu dhabi ?
I'm thinking to start my own payment gateway here this is ridiculous. We are in 2011 these solutions are as common as gonorrhea in rest of the world.
Apologies - I seem to have missed this comment. The problem isn't really the gateway - you can use guys like Cybersource with a local merchant account (it's essentially a per transaction cost - a few cents per transaction and other yearly costs) - but the problem you run into is the merchant account itself.
The monopoly is in the merchant account - and that is something that only 3 banks - Emirates NBD, Mashreq and National Banks of Abu Dhabi are allowed - requires Central Bank permission as far as I know.
Hi Omar,i am also in some sort of a dilemma about the payment gateways options here. Do you have any update on this case? Which one u chose at the end and why?
Hi Jenos,
It's a very murky payments market. We ended up going with Network International - have a look through the comments below. We got decent rates from them and some level of service!
Omar would you mind elaborating on setup, deposit and per transaction costs with Network International please
Sultan
Sultan,
This is what i received from them couple of days before. The prices are all depends on how long the company has been established and the volume of transaction that happens
VISA
3.00%
MasterCard
3.00%
JCB
3.00%
Per Transaction Fee
AED 2.00
Setup Charges per
merchant ID
US $1,000.00
Annual Service fee
US $3,000.00
Collateral
(Security Deposit)
US $20,000.00
A slight edit: We had to pay USD 50K. Not AED. Crazy. Annual Fees total to USD 5K at the moment.
If I remember it correctly that's pretty much the deal we were offered. The security deposit may have been around AED 50K and not USD 20K. It doesn't really make sense considering that they could easily have a "rolling reserve" on the basis of your transaction volume.
Both Network and Mashreq use the MiGS Gateway that is a Mastercard product but is served up by TNS Payments - an Australian firm. The documentation from Network was non-existant, but it's out there if you look for it. Implementation is doable if you have a decent team!
With such high setup and maintenance costs, why is it not really better setting up with places like 2checkout.com or paypal and then getting the money wired across. The end costs is around 6% per transaction (factoring in exchange rates, etc) as been mentioned here.
Anyone has any experience with setting up with international firms and wiring the money back to UAE? any hidden costs/heckups/total catastrophes?
Also PIPS, i never heard or them and like omar said they have nothing online. Anyone had any xperience with them?
This is the only sensible readable post about online payment gateways in UAE. I suggest expanding it a little bit using the info in the comments and charting a couple of comparisons and you are ready to be the top reference on the matter.
Hi Sultan,
I'll try to see what I can do in the next couple of weeks - unfortunately I got busy with other bits and pieces and I didn't get a chance to revisit this. I may do something over at the JadoPado Blog - blog.jadopado.com in the near future.
cheers mate. it would be gr8 if you do so. Payment and good delivery models are the two components barring most people from going heavy duty into ecommerce.
HI All... great post Omar.. I would like to give my 2 cents here on the differences...
NI:
- Supports VISA + MasterCard
- All transactions must be 3D Secure (Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode)
- Supports a 're-direct' model or i-frame model (payment page stuff)
- Does not support recurring transactions
- Support team is responsive
Etisalat
- Supports VISA/MasterCard/JCB (via NI) and Amex (via Amex Middle-East)
- 3D (Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode) is optional
- Supports only 're-direct' model (poor design and experience/usability)
- Supports recurring transactions
- Support team is unresponsive and disconnected
We are currently with Etisalat and are having issues, even their reporting application is full of bugs and no support. My main issue is the design and flow of how these Payment Gateways take credit card details, I'm not sure how Mashreq bank is, but Etisalat and NI force a re-direct to another hosted web page with minimal ability to customize the design to match your website. Considering our customers are split 50/50 between MENA/non-MENA we rather shoot for a better checkout experience then send customers to 3rd Party sites that have a look and feel of websites made in 1992. Since NI is 3D secure only and our customers are global, we feel that imposing 3D secure by default will increase the abandon rates because those in the West and Europe have not all adopted it successfully in which the banks are responsible to educate them on what it is, rather than having them find it out while making a payment on our site.
Looking around globally at other Payment Gateway Providers, they all provide the ability to place an i-frame on your payment page (payment section) where it loads the necessary fields and that's all (CC#, Type, EXP, CSC), here they don't want to give you this flexibility.
From an Etisalat stand-point, they really don't care to make private companies happy and offer this type of flexibility. They provide PG's for the Government Entities which essentially are rendered services/fines in which the citizen have no choice but to pay in person or online, hence the poor design of the experience and not willing to fix it so other customer facing companies who need to sell a product from the product page all the way to the credit card input section.
Etisalat may or may not need to blame here as everything is controlled by the Card Schemes, but they can surely make a push to offer more flexibility so that UAE companies, or even GCC companies will attract more online business from non-GCC consumers.
Overall, if you do not care for Amex, stay away from Etisalat for your payment gateway needs. Because essentially Etisalat will send the transaction to either NI or Amex depending on the card type, so essentially you will cut the middle man out!
Being PCI-DSS compliant changes the game though... but it is not cheap!
Thanks for a very informative comment Ziyaad. I didn't have much information on what Etisalat was offering - I stopped when they referred me back to Mashreq (or sent me the same form that Mashreq sent me). I think from what I've learnt over the last few months - they're essentially offering a payment gateway service while leaning on the usual bunch (Network, Mashreq and NBAD) for merchant accounts.
A few comments to add:
- There seems to be general confusion between a payment gateway and a merchant account. To keep things simple you need both to process payments online or use a provider like Paypal (many issues including the whole AED problem) who act as an all in one.
- Both Network International and Mashreq bundle their merchant accounts with the MiGS gateway at no extra charge aside from their merchant fees and various deposits / long non liability letters :) etc. The MiGS gateway is run by TNS Payments from Australia and is actually a Mastercard product.
- NI / Mashreq along with the MiGS gateway do not actually require you to process 3D Secure. Up until this point there were no credit cards in the region that were 3D Secure - Emirates NBD recently launched their DoubleSecure cards. If you choose to go with the 2-Party approach the gateway actually doesn't do anything in 3D Secure - but the burden of fraud and compliance shifts squarely onto the merchant - a tradeoff for a better experience? If you take the 3-Party approach, i.e. redirecting to that ugly payment page - liability is shifted away from the merchant since 3D Secure cards are supported.
- It's possible to use Etisalat as a third party gateway. I have no idea how much Etisalat charges on top. Ziyaad - any comments?
- It's possible to use a firm like Cybersource to process your payments in AED while maintaining your merchant account at Mashreq, NBAD or NI. Cybersource is a large and one of the oldets global payments providesr and will essentially process your payments using their infrastructure and settle into your local merchant account. The reason to go with a third party gateway is the ability to combine merchant accounts, use multiple currencies, multiple markets and consolidate it all under one platfrom. Cybersource also offers PCI Compliant card storage which is great for repeat customers. From what I recall it was essentially working out to a few cents per transaction say USD 0.15 to 0.18 on top of each transaction and around USD 18 to 20 K annually? I'll have to dig it up to be sure. Not cheap but worth considering if you require the sophistication. We gave it a look but have put it off until things grow.
- Over at JadoPado, we're still working on the PCI Compliance. It is quite expensive to do so - but strangely no one has really insisted that we be compliant (not even NI, aside from just saying so!) aside from ourselves. The industry standard is there - it's your choice and therefore what you're trying to say to your customers to do so. It starts from hosting all the way down to who sees card info. Long - but potentially necessary in the long term. Still learning as we go along.
Hi ziyad,
Quite informative. Thank you so much for posting. Do you mind posting a couple of URLS where you have implemented both the solutions? would want to see a live working version and how the implementation and user friendliness are.
Hi Jenos,
Thanks for your comment. If you want to see how Etisalat's CPP (common payment page) looks like, have a look at www.dubaidutyfree.com and follow the steps to make a purchase, you will see what I mean. For NI, go to www.gonabbit.com and do the same.
Overall, these 2 companies will most likely only serve UAE customers and without much competition as no one offers a similar product.
For an i-frame style which I'm planning would be similar to what www.swarovski.com did, they removed the liability of being PCI-DSS compliant via their payment gateway.
www.jadopado.com took the PCI-DSS liabilty by being compliant and and placed the credit card form directly on their page (Omar, correct me if I'm wrong). They did a great job though!
Ziyaad - out of curosity - this is something I've been trying to get more information on - how did you guys set things up with American Express?
From what I know they provide their own merchant account and it's up to you which payment gateway you want to use. How did you manage to set up the necessary online merchant account with them?
Do you have any contact details / costs etc?
Or did it happen through Etisalat?
Great topic guys... Coming to Dubai with an online venture and the online payment gateway is my current concern... it is really helpful... Thank you all ...
Great post Omar and thanks to all of the guys that commented,
I just want to add my 2 cents:
Another option is moneybookers.com . I am pretty sure that is the gateway that nailthedeal.com is using. The fees are pretty reasonable when you compare them to 2checkout and I think they allow you to integrate the payment gateway onto your website.
On the sign up page, they allowed me to choose Dhirams as my currency so I think they do not have currency charges. However, if im not mistaken they have restrictions on how much money can be withdrawn to your local bank (I think there are fees involved). Sorry for the vague info but I've been suffering from information overload from all these payment gateway websites.
I am also waiting for a proposal from PIPS. The manager told me that they will be starting credit card procession from the 1st week of september, so that might be something to look forward too.
When it comes to NI, I actually got decent terms (based on the comments below):
1)3% + 1 AED
2)30k$ deposit
3)4k$ annual fee
4)1000$ per merchant id
5)500$ to add my logo to the payment page
I think I will be going with NI.
I also came across a recommendation for Alert Pay, but I haven't really read into it. The fees are on the higher side though.
Here are some useful links:
https://www.moneybookers.co...
http://www.moneybookers.com...
https://www.alertpay.com/Do...
http://answers.yallastartup...
https://www.alertpay.com/en...
Thanks again
Hey Kevin,
Thank you for leaving a very detailed comment.
From my brief glance at moneybookers, the fees feel quite high. 3.90% to start with. If your product range has the margin I guess it's affordable. I think with us even 3% is too much!
The terms that NI are offering seem to be ok. I think we need to negotiate some of our initial deposit back. I really don't understand why they want cash up front. Surely you can run a rolling reserve on a monthly basis (i.e. block up to say 20% of your monthly volume) as protection against chargebacks. My only consideration in this regard is that we're not actually using the pay pages that are provided by the MiGS gateway. We ended up going the 2 Party route and actually gather all the data on our own custom pages. This is not easy to manage and brings along a lot of PCI Compliance issues - that most people seem to ignore anyway!
I also know that on the basis of volume the 3% fee can be negotiated down further. The brief conversation that we had with them a few weeks ago is that they are willing to make it 2.85% after a year. I still think this is high versus swiping (given that there will be some additional cost due to the risk of fraud - but then again the cost of fraud falls completely on the merchant!) and the 1 year time frame is too long. However now that I know it's possible, it's worth pushing for. I am expecting to meet with them again fairly soon.
We've also been speaking with Mashreq to consider a counter proposal. Obviously it can't be that straight forward! Their last offer was 3.25%. Why would we switch to them for a higher fee? Given that both NI and Mashreq bundle with the same gateway it makes no sense!
I wish we had more players in the market. I know from someone that I was talking to recently in the UK it's much easier to play off providers against each other and agree a fee well below 2%.
I had a brief look at Alert Pay. Similar to the other services out there, it's very difficult to find anyone who will give you good rates and allow you to process and settle in AED. USD is possible with Paypal and a few others, but it's pain to deal with on your end and again with low margin products the exchange rate issues will crop up both with yourself and your customer.
The other interesting development that I came across was Cybersource. Yep - they can actually connect up to your NI or Mashreq merchant account and process payments via their gateway. Funds would settle into your relevant merchant account. They price on the basis of cents per transaction rather than a percentage - fairly normal with third party gateway services. I gave it some initial consideration but decided not to opt for it. However, given that things are taking off pretty well on our side the chance of fraud is worrying me. The MiGS gateway has next to nothing in terms of fraud and risk management and I think we may just opt for Cybersource in the near future. The additional cost is worth it.
The other potential advantages are that you can reduce your PCI Scope by using an implementation method that allows you to have their fields on your own pages. This is a hybrid of server pages and your own pages. In a nutshell when a user is entering in their card details they aren't being entered into your fields, but on the field provided by CyberSource. The compliance shifts from you to them. The beauty is that your pages can look and feel exactly the way you want.
Aside from being one of the Internet's oldest payment providers, Cybersource has a number of other good services. Payment tokenisation allows you to store customer credit cards server side and request a token which you store on your end. This allows you to process subscription payments and repeat purchases without asking the customer for their details again. Very useful!
*Phew* Long one. Thanks again for your comments!
Omar, Awesome Info. Could you elaborate where you got the cybersource info from? Did you call their UK office? I called their US office and it seems they have no idea about services offering to Middle East companies and asked me to contact their UK Office.
Hi!
Yep - their UK offices should be able to sort you out. That's who we went through.
hello guys, hi Omar... just wanted to say thanks so much for this post! it is so helpful! i think everyone seems to be facing issues with the payment gateways/ merchant accounts here... i'm also doing some due diligence on this subject & will update your post if i find anything new... have you guys looked into having a merchant account outside the UAE? i.e. if you incorporate your company as an offshore entity & deal with an international bank like say HSBC... am also looking at merchant account + payment gateway options from Lebanon since they're much cheaper than the UAE... anyone has experience in that?
Again... thanks for this post... great help!
Hey Loulou,
Thank you for stopping by.
I actually incorporated an entity in the UK to use a payment provider called Sage out there. The main issues that you may face are taxation - even if you consider something along the lines of transfer pricing to price between your entities you will end up with some element of tax burden. The other issue lies around currency. It's easy to process the currency of the country that your incorporated in, but harder to process AED. I gave up on this thinking that the hassle to go local would probably be easier to manage.
The only example that I can think of locally that has done Lebanon is GoNabit. Dan Stuart, the founder has mentioned to me that Lebanon is significantly cheaper and easier to set up. Worth a look - but consider currency and where your customer base may reside before you leap!
Have a wander over to blog.jadopado.com. Hopefully I'll do something else there soon!
Hi Omar, thanks for the quick reply.
I was thinking of incorporating an offshore entity possibly in the BVIs and then I don't think I will be subject to taxation... However this needs to be carefully studied. I agree with you, definitely need to consider my audience + currency issues.
Lebanon is certainly looking like the best option so far, certainly better than the UAE. It is definitely cheaper as I had a meeting with Net Commerce which is one of the payment gateway providers in Lebanon and the costs are far less then the crazy charges you get here.
Who did you opt for at the end? is it NI?
Hi Omar,
Thank you for starting this interesting and very useful thread.
First of all, it seems that I am in a position to apologize to you... :( .. because you have mentioned that Prosum did not respond to you. Hmm... that's me who would take the responsibility! But I have scanned through our online and offline contact requests and, for some reason, could not find your name among the list. Apologies, anyway.
Moving on, PIPS (Prosum Integrated PaySwitch) now serves quite a few merchants in and around UAE, including for Credit Cards (comes along with the benefits of a PCI DSS certified platform PLUS a very comprehensive Fraud Management Solution), Direct Debit / Net Banking Payments and Alternate Payments such as PayPal.
Feel free to reach me through joe-at-prosumfzc.com.
The best contact link for New Merchants desiring our services is https://pipscentral.com/PIP...
Cordially,
Joseph Ponnou
Hi Joseph, Apologies for the slow response to this comment. It kinda got left behind after you got in touch over the phone!
I hope that this post helps a few more people get in touch with you directly!
Hi Omar - your blog has been really useful. I have got in touch with majority of the processors mentioned in this blog. An apparently authentic processor is http://innovatepayments.com/
The rates as I got from them were very very competitive. It's a new company and they are trying to ramp up their clientele. Do contact me on arbhanger at gmail com if need any help.
Hi Arbhanger,
Thank you for swinging by. I heard about Innovate Payments a few weeks ago. They seems to be third party processor similar to firms like Cybersource and so on. I did a follow up to this post with a quick primer on Understanding Online Payments in the UAE over at the JadoPado Blog: http://jdp.do/sEp0Bq. I'll link to it from the main post in a bit.
If you're able to, itwould be nice if you could post their rates so that everyone on this thread has access to them.
Wow.. can't believe this is still going!... Great stuff.... overall going outside UAE gets messy.. but still possible. About multiple currencies... do you feel it is necessary to transact/process in other currencies or is it suffice to just offer different currency options for display only?
Hey Ziyaad. Welcome back! If you haven't already, I did a follow up post over at the JadoPado Blog - that sorta stepped through our understanding of the local payments space from a basic point of view. http://jdp.do/sEp0Bq
In terms of multiple currencies, I think it comes down to your business and your customer base. If the business is focused primarily on the local market, multiple currencies either processing or even via display isn't necessary in my view.
If you're after a wider market, I think to start with, display is fine as long as your customers understand that you're processing in a given currency and that they may be hit with a different price / conversion costs and fees from their card issuer when they use your services. It's frustrating to pay for something say in USD and then be billed in EUR and realise that you got hit with a crappy exchange rate + fees on top.
As the business grows I think multiple currency processing is important. The more options you can offer to your customer base the better. A few issues to think about at this time would be how settlement takes place - i.e. is your processor settling you in one or in multiple currencies. If it's one - who decides on the rates? If it is multiple - who covers your currency exposure, will you face hedging costs and so on. *phew*!
Next Q..... We want to offer Paypal as an option, though am running into some issues with transferring the funds from them to our ENBD USD Bank Account. Paypal said that they can transfer funds to a Visa Debit card and then transfer that to our Bank. Unfortunately, ENBD do not issue Debit cards for Corporate Accounts........ NI said they may be able to help..... anyone facing such issues???? Keep in mind opening Banks Accounts with other banks in the same or other countries is not an option.....
*sigh* Probably the second biggest reason why I felt Paypal was an infeasible option. As soon as your business starts to scale - can you really manage your incoming funds via a debit card. Heh.
It works for small occasional transactions, but you can't really run a business on a debit card. I am uncertain what the daily transaction limit is, however I recall it to be pretty small.
The only other option at this time is to open a USD account with a bank in the States. This can however bring up issues are new incorporations, taxation and so on - unless you can set it up directly using an existing relationship with a global bank. As you said in your query - if it isn't an option to open a new account this goes out the window as well. The settlement time into a US based USD account is 3 to 5 days - again something to keep in mind. Some local processors will settle in 3 days or faster depending on your relationship and terms.
Quite well said..
Just a couple of add-on points:
The daily limit for receiving money from PayPal through your card is US$ 500. The bigger challenge is that your issuing bank may not recognize the credit if you are using a credit card, so try with a smaller amount first.
About opening a bank account in USA, remember that this must be preceded by formally registering a company over there :(
I opened a personal chequing account in the US at the very last minute as I was on holiday. Yes, the business must be registered first when I inquired, but I found First Independent Data Sales will do a payment gateway linked to my personal chequing account provided as I have a US address and proof (lease agreement). Their fees are very reasonable and there is a very small cancellation fee. They are also regulated by the banks, unlike Paypal, who get to do what they want with no recourse. Anyways. the problem now is that when I spoke with a tax accountant he told me that if the bank finds out that I'm using the personal account for the business, they will shut it down. Then there is the tax implication of personal vs business taxes. I am on the verge of that one or a bank here but surely these fees are quite high. Is there anyone that has experience with any of the banks gateways here?
There is a company called Innovate Payments, which provides Merchant accounts for Online Credit Card Processing in UAE. The gateway is 3D Secure.
Hi Guys, I know it has been a while since this blog has started and maybe some information got obsolete.
However I was searching for Payment channels options in UAE, and I found your blog.
Am about to sign with a new payment channel called "Noqodi" from emaratech. they are also 3% for credit card payment. also they have something called Wallet Id which I ready did not get it, but it is very similar to top up account idea. (am only interested in credit card) and trying to look for "Visa electron" - (like on ATM cards) (and it might be impossible, but I will give it a shot trying.)
Anyone recommend this new payment channel, or any local alternative for it?
Great Post,
So what is the final verdict for processing payments online in the UAE? did anyone make a price comparison that we can refer to?
I appreciate your points of view and how well you have made your information clear.
Hi All!!!
ThAnk You very much!!! You are doing goog job! I'm also planning to start up a project with online payment system via own future website!
I have a question - how many participants in one payment transaction?
Sincerely,
Chyngyz
Rather late to comment :) But what is the conclusion on the above - what payment gateway do you use?
Are there any services that link to Indian/international bank accounts instead of just US?
Does someone with a UAE merchant account have to use a bank/Etisalat provide gateway?
A
moneybookers have just set up a online payment system its the cheapest so far with no money to be kept in there account. hope this helps angela
Hi OMAR, we are located in India. we sale medicine across the globe. can u provide merchant account or payment gateway for online pharmacy
Um. I'm not a merchant account provider.
I'm also planning to start up a project with online payment system via own future website!
hello.. I'm looking into the same thing right now. I noticed this is two years ago.. what happened? what did you end up choosing/why?
thanks so much, all info helps! (most things you find online are US orientated and don't necessarily apply here...)
we have been struggled to open merchant account for www.tiabids.com based in uae , now only paypal is running , prosum took long journey to offer merchant account but finally bank refused ...
Hi,
I hope you are very much aware about the fact that UAE central bank launched direct debit system recently and now all banks are in the final phase of implementation.What the relevants of etisalt payment gateway when central bank itself facilitating online bill payments both fixed and non fixed bill?
It sounds like what you're saying is that the UAE Central Bank has mandated that a direct debit system be put in place. They won't act as a provider of the system nor will they execute the transactions themselves.
Both merchants and banks will still require payments solutions that can handle a direct debit process, ideally alongside other payment options so that you can get a consolidated view of your payments activity.
Hi Guys,
Wound anyone be able to point us
in the right direction,
Can a non UAE national open a
bank account in the UAE and have it linked to a website?
Any help would be much
appreciated.
Hello! Yep, a non-national can definitely open a bank account in the UAE. Generally you'll need to be a UAE resident, but exceptions do happen if you have a good relationship with the institution.
Two caveats:
1. You'll need to open a business account (which means licensing your business) rather than a personal account if you want to accept payments, as most merchant account / payment gateway providers won't accept a personal account.
2. Most payment gateway or third party payment gateway providers will settle into a merchant account before settlement into a bank account.
There's more info here: http://blog.jadopado.com/un.... Read through the comments as well.
Aoa Omar,
I wonder if there is an update on this - I understand Paypal have set up in Dubai recently and even big sites like Cobone are using them so I assume they now allow withdrawal to UAE accounts.
The context of my interest is we have a very successful company that is UK based and we want to shift to Dubai (an Arabic tuition centre) - our primary payment gateways are Paypal and Sagepay. The key for me is to withdraw the money to a Dubai account and to set up a freezone company (100% owned) - not sure if Paypal under their new presence allow freezone companies to set up a merchant account.
Thanks!
Saeed
Salams Saeed,
Unfortunately as far as I know, PayPal set up in the region in November 2012, but they don't have a local withdrawal option yet. Most of the details from my post from last January still holds: http://blog.jadopado.com/ua....
The only realistic option in terms of local withdrawal remains setting up with a local merchant account provider. A potential alternative may be 2Checkout.com. I haven't had any experiences with them, though!
If you'd like to stick something up on the JadoPado Forums (http://forums.jadopado.com) it may be easier to continue the conversation there!
I want to start the website one platform many solution . my plan is recharge du & etisalath mobile phones, dewa bills, sewa bills , nol card recharge , salik recharge and all bill payments . so my question is its enough to buy one api for all this recharges. or we should tie up with particular companies?
who can open a merchant Account , can you please guide me step by step .
i need gateway with international payment compatibility USD
I like the new payfort method to integrate with wordpress and woocommerce. Woocommerce also support for cybersource. And there is one more plugin for MiGs on codecanyon which can integrate NBAD MiGs service with woocommerce.
We are having a corporate account with NBD bank and would like to know the procedures to get a payment gateway for online payments.
Please advise