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Ask HN: How to receive payments from India for an international company?
Our B2B business has been getting a bit of traction in the Indian market of late (through no effort of mine), but it appears to be very hard for our Indian customers to actual pay us. We are based in Australia and have no Indian subsidiary. So far all I have found is wire transfers (which are a huge pain for smallish amount). It seems that almost all Indian credit cards can’t be used for international payments.
Has anyone else run into this problem and has anyone found any workable solution?
- gesman 10y agoCan they pay in bitcoins? Then you can convert them to cash at coinbase and alike exchanges right away.
- danieltillett 10y agoI suppose in theory, but does anyone know of a reliable Indian bitcoin exchange that is easy for Indian businesses to use? Edit. A quick check suggests this is a very expensive way to go given the price of bitcoins in India. Also to buy bitcoins in India you basically have to set up a bank account and go through the whole KYC process. This does not look like a low friction option for Indian companies.
- sayelt 10y agoLocalbitcoins should allow you to buy BTC other than with a bank account. https://localbitcoins.com/country/IN https://localbitcoins.com/country/IN
- danieltillett 10y agoThis is not really a low friction or cheap solution.
- sayelt 10y agoWhy not?
- danieltillett 10y agoI answered it in the response to the OP. A wire transfer would be cheaper and have lower friction.
- sayelt 10y agoThat's bullshit. Banks are the ones with the highest friction and fees.
- danieltillett 10y agoThe bitcoin spread is over 25% right now in India. That combined with the paperwork requirement needed for a business to buy bitcoins does not make for a low friction experience.
- sayelt 10y agoWhat paperwork do you need as a business to buy bitcoin?
- danieltillett 10y agoThanks to the RBI you need to go through the full KYC process - basically the same as setting up a business bank account. This in not low friction.
- sayelt 10y agoWith banks you always go through KYC/AML, this is nothing to do with bitcoin, and everything to do with banks.
- 10y ago
- sharmi 10y agoPaypal should work. I routinely use Paypal to pay for international vendors. I know this is not the preferred option, but they are well integrated with our Indian banks. As far as I know, Stripe and other similar options don't work in India. I also remember using Amazon payments a couple of years back but that was to pay an US provider not Australia, so your mileage may vary.
- danieltillett 10y agoAre you sure PayPal works as we actually use PayPal as our payment processor for small payments and the Indian customers told me the payment would not go through? I have a feeling for it to work you have to have it linked to one of the tiny number of Indian credit cards that allow international payments. Edit. This quora link suggests it is a known problem [1] and this link goes into more detail [2]. 1. https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-make-international-payments-when-most-of-Indian-bank-debit-cards-are-not-supported-by-Paypal https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-make-international-payments... 2. https://www.isaumya.com/paypal-google-wallet-indian-debit-card-support/ https://www.isaumya.com/paypal-google-wallet-indian-debit-ca...
- sharmi 10y agoMy bad, I do use the ICICI debit card but many nationalized banks dont support paypal. If it is so important to you could integrate a payment gateway into your app. Payment Gateways support all major banks. Here is a link to one. There are several PGs available. I am not sure if all of them support international merchants. https://www.payubiz.in/international-merchant https://www.payubiz.in/international-merchant
- danieltillett 10y agoNot a problem. From my investigations the Indian payment gateways can only deal with Indian companies. The RBI certainly hates us :(
- sharmi 10y ago
- moh_maya 10y agoYour customers may need to speak with their banks if they haven't requested activation of their cards for international transactions, since the transactions may be flagged otherwise. This is a simple call; shouldn't take them more than 5-8 min depending on the bank. In addition, 2-factor authentication (2FA; Verified by VISA; Mastercard Securecode) is mandatory for debit card based transactions. I don't think that's the case for credit cards, but I wouldn't be surprised if, in either case, banks decline to approve transactions from payment processors who don't support 2FA --> so perhaps this is something you could check with your payment processor? paypal: Many banks in India don't allow transactions with Paypal (perhaps because of concerns of paypal's compliance with Indian banking guidelines), so Paypal is hit or miss.
- danieltillett 10y agoThis activation process is limited to a small number of cards only and I can’t find out any information if company credit/debit cards can be activated or just personal cards. I surely can’t be the first business in history to run into this problem?
- webtechgal 10y agoAFAIK, all credit cards should work directly - whether company or personal. So far as debit cards are concerned, to the best of my knowledge, such cards are issued to company/business accounts ONLY if the business is a sole proprietor type. If there are multiple people operating a business account, no debit cards are issued. Thus, a business account debit card is essentially the same as that of a personal account. HTH
- sayelt 10y agoBitcoin.
- vram22 10y agoYou can try asking State Bank of India and some of the large private sector Indian banks like HDFC and ICICI Bank. Googling will easily get you their sites and some links or emails via which to contact them. I recently checked with my bank about paying vendors outside India via online methods, but that was for personal use, like buying small consumer items, not as a company. They did say it was possible. But if your clients in India are companies, you will have to check - the rules (and available methods of payment) are likely to be different for companies than for individuals.
- webtechgal 10y agoBased on my first-hand experience: 1. Credit cards issued by ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and AXIX Bank work directly for international payments (been using all 3 for over a decade now) 2. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank Debit cards also work for international payments, but not by default. The card holder has to call up the bank to activate international payment facility - a quick and simple process. Let me know if there is any other specific info that I can provide. HTH.
- danieltillett 10y agoIs this for business credit and debit cards? It is hard to find information what regulation are on these cards and if they are treated differently to personal cards.
- webtechgal 10y agoThe ones I've been using (as mentioned in my previous comment) are all personal cards, both credit and debit. While I don't have any first-hand info on business cards vis-a-vis international payments, I believe they should work the same way as the personal ones.
- danieltillett 10y agoIt is amazingly hard to get any information from anyone on this topic. I find it hard to believe that there are no other companies outside of India that have ever had to solve this problem :(
- mritun 10y agoFirst hand experience. Personal cards (incl corporate cards) both debit and credit issued by ICICI and AMEX always worked internationally without a problem. My SBI corporate card needed to be "activated" before international travel. It was NOT a Bank policy or Govt policy but something that the finance/accounts dept instructs bank to do to reduce risk of fraud (its nonsense, but there it is). For all cards, it's between bank and customer. All AMEX and Most (all?) Visa/MasterCard should work internationally.
- known 10y agoI use Paypal
- danieltillett 10y agoYes PayPal works if you have it linked to a credit/debit card that allows international payments. The problem in only a small percentage of Indian cards are able to be used to make international payments.