The term offshore usually makes people think that something illicit is currently, or going to happen in the future. Not true; in fact, going offshore is a great way of streamlining an international client base and getting better rates, while doing it. The term offshore simply put, means that you are doing your banking in a country other than the one, your company is physically or legally registered in. For many businesses, that do a lot of business in one particular country, that is really the main option.
Merchant Service Providers specializes in finding merchant accounts for businesses throughout the world and links them with the right bank for them, depending on their geographical market and type of business. Ecommerce based businesses differ as widely as any other type of business. Five years ago, a popular, high volume, internet based retail business was Ebay. Today, Ebay is still the leader in internet based seller to seller simple transactions. Most of the business is transacted through Paypal, which is in a sense an escrow service, or entity that holds money, only to be released under terms of a pre-determined agreement. I've heard of them described as an organization that lets you send money to someone else's email. I guess it's not that easy; like all bank transactions, these are funneled through banks, while secure, simply through some bank, somewhere; maybe domestic, maybe offshore. I guess we'll never know. The point is that when you give a business your credit card numbers, they're processed through a number of channels that provide security, transfer funds and deliver them securely to their final destination.
Today, internet based businesses have grown from a merchant supplementing their storefront with taking orders online and over the telephone, to entirely internet and telephone based businesses. These online merchants don't have it as easy as we may think. With the kind of exposure that the internet creates, combined with the relative ease of creating an internet based business, prices are driven down, while volume drastically increases. A good complaint? If your supply lines and logistics are in place. Maintaining and growing a profitable online business is so much of the battle today and the saying is true that the hardest test is the test of time. While good service and accessibility to your vendors and customers are key, sustainability and survival are just as important. Behind the scenes, product fulfillment and good banking keeps you out of court and out of your banker's office applying for a second mortgage. Using a merchant service provider cannot help you with your supply chain management; however, it can help with your online banking needs, as well as specialize in not only high volume credit card processing and online check processing, but also high risk accounts, which are mostly just categorized as, "Card not present" transactions by domestic banking institutions.
Stradefee Limited, for example, works with merchants ranging from low risk, low volume, to high risk, high volume and everything In between. Just as every business owner has specific needs, merchant service providers like them have specific solutions. They can offer merchants services such as virtual terminals, third party fraud scrubbing, aggregator accounts, account signatory services and processing gateways. As not all online merchants offer hard goods, service industry vendors are very much a part of our portfolio. Companies from law firms, large event caterers and concessions providers to online music download websites and travel companies can all benefit from services that internet banking facilitators have to offer. Today, nearly any product that you can purchase in a store, from sporting goods, clothing, large home electronics, appliances and automobiles to services you can obtain like law and medical advice (usually not professional), business consulting, banking and media purchases are all mainstream internet transactions and they're almost all high volume. In an economy, where bottom lines get smaller and personal time is at an all time and coveted low, your business needs to run more efficiently with the ability to grow and maintain that growth. Your banking needs cannot be the bottleneck of your business plan.
