Who offers payment gateways to the “high-risk” CBD business?
One of the biggest challenges in (online) trading of CBD products is likely to be finding a payment solution provider (PSP). Because CBD, although widely accepted by the population, still has a reputation for being an illegal intoxicant. Hopefully with the recent vote in the UN concerning the scheduling of Cannabis this will change in the future. Within the PSP’s it is thus regarded as a so-called ‘high-risk’ business and is thus on a level with gambling or adult entertainment. As a relatively young industry, CBD trading is said to be at greater risk of having to deal with defaults, credit card fraud or chargebacks. We know that this is probably untrue, as a CBD company you will pay extra charges because of this classification and have to jump through more hoops.
Below we offer a list of European PSPs (yes, there are a few more in the US) that differ not only in cost. Due to the rather inconsistent release of CBD products (e.g. In terms of THC content) within Europe, these providers are also very interested in the product range of your online shop.
When applying you should ensure you know the details of the type of products you sell, their manufacturing method. The level of THC they contain and have a valid third party COA (certificate of analysis) with your company name on it, proving this.
What you should pay attention to when selecting your PSP.
- Reliability – there is hardly a worse situation than if the PSP’s abruptly ends the cooperation and shuts down your shop. Pay attention to the terms and conditions! In our opinion you should always have a backup payment gateway in case one goes down or unexpectedly terminates your account.
- Technical implementation – most have some kind of API, plugin or interface between the hosts of your webshop, the payment provider and your bank. It is best to check that your webshop is supported.
- Costs – there are various visible costs and hidden cost here. All providers are of course interested in the highest possible turnover and will also select the cooperation with you according to whether your shop can guarantee this or will offer in a short time. For startups with no proven track record or sales history, this means you will get poorer terms and conditions, compared to an existing business with a proven sales track record. Remember you can renegotiate in the future if you are successful.
- Customer support – good, quickly reachable customer support is important. It is best to have a personal contact person. In case of cases, you will spend a longer time with the support.
- Payments – How do your customers want to pay. You don’t have to offer all the exotic ways to pay, but certainly the most popular like Visa and Mastercard. Which means of payment have the greatest potential – check the regions you intend to sell in, for example SOFORT in Germany, Klarna in Holland & Germany, Mobile pay in Scandinavia, (Don’t forget crypto currencies like bitcoin). Unfortunately Paypal do not allow CBD companies to use their platform at this time.
B2BPAY.CO
B2BPay
Factory Berlin,
Rheinsberger Straße 76/77,
10115 Berlin
Germany
Telephone (Germany) +4915738770969
Telephone (Finland) +35846 6397210
Web:: B2Bpay.co
E-Mail: https://www.b2bpay.co/contact
Start at 5% MDR (Merchant Discount Rate)
5% rolling reserve
No setup fee
ZING:GG
ZING GG Ltd.
1 St. Peter’s Square,
2nd Floor, Office 104
M2 3DE
Manchester
United Kingdom
Telephone: +442880090001 /+447444705044 (mobile)
Web: www.zing.gg
E-Mail: hello@zing.gg
Pricing Model IC++ (Interchange and card scheme fees added to base rate at face value)
Discount Rate 1.85%
Transaction fee €0.25 (per successful transaction, incl. 3DS fee and; no cost for declines)
Refund fee €1.00 per refund
Chargeback fee €35 per chargeback
Setup fee €0
Monthly fee €7 (PCI compliance fee)
Settlement terms Weekly + 3 days
Risk provision 5% for 130 days if in business > 1 year; otherwise 10% for 130 days
Regarding fraud and chargebacks, CBD merchants are treated as any other merchant category in that they are subject to scheme thresholds, meaning less than 1%. Since all configs are 3DS these days coming into the SCA implementation deadline of December 31, we anticipate that in general the only chargebacks will be collaboration disputes, eg. product not delivered, not as expected, or refund agreed but not provided etc. Obviously if there was some significant occurrence of this sort of dispute we’d be interested in knowing why, but otherwise a few CBs in any business are expected and not a big deal.
Total Processing
Total Processing Ltd.
72 Gartside Street
Manchester
M3 3EL
Telephone: 0330 041 4768
Contact: sales@totalprocessing.com
We have a maximum limit of 0.09% THC and would require lab reports to show this for all products that are on your website.
EUPaymentz
EU Paymentz
District 28 Manyovo Bardo Str., 4th floor, apt. 13
Ovcha Kupel
Sofia District (Capital), Sofia Municipality
Sofia 1618
Bulgaria
Telephone: +44 1244 94 1125
Web: EUPaymentz.com
Email: info@eupaymentz.com
We can do CBD merchants, but matters on your monthly turnover? No answer, since i said 10K€ per month for the beginning
VIVA WALLET
VIVA PAYMENT SERVICES S.A.
Netherlands branch-
Johan van Hasseltweg 2 A3
1022VW Amsterdam
the Netherlands
Telephone: +31612489554
Web: Vivawallet.com
E-Mail: dbokstijn@vivawallet.com
Yes we do provide our service to CBD company’s, we have a wide network of customers within this sector.
We’ve got two restrictions from the company, the products must got less than 0,05% THC in it and our customers has to provide us 3 lab reports of different products.
Viva Wallet exists for more than 20 years now, we’re based in 23 country’s within Europe and we provide entrepreneurs our cloud based solution to accept payments physically and online.
We create an account for our customers which generate an API which could be implemented in the Woocommerce environment. We’ve got an app which could be downloaded in the app/play store to mange your online payments in realtime 24/7.
Beside the transaction costs , we don’t have additional costs like service costs/monthly fee or something like that.
And then there are high-risk PSPs, which may be very good. Unfortunately, however, we will never know, as you are supposed to go through an elaborate verification process there before you even receive an offer. We don’t think much of revealing everything without knowing what:
IKAJO
IKAJO INTERNATIONAL BV
Kingsfordweg 151
1043 GR Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Telephone: +31204919202
Web: www.ikajo.com
E-Mail: nazar@ikajo.com
we can support CBD is this is not a startup and director of the company is EU citizen.
Once we pre-approval your application with our partner-banks we will come up with a pricing offer.
In case of approval processing fee will be around 6%.
PAYSPACELV
SIA PAYSPACE
Lizuma iela 1 k-12
Rīga
Republic of Latvia
Telehone: +371 678 818 46
Web: https://payspacelv.com/
E-Mail: application@payspacelv.com
A real psp, working with many types of businesses.
We work with CBD if you have a European company + processing history + turnover from 50,000 USD
Please fill out the application form attached herewith and provide documents requested in the end of the app form and we’ll be able to start the on-boarding process right away.
If your UBO is a citizen of the European Union we can connect you to this solution
Visa/MasterCard
Set up fee 1500
Monthly fee
paid from the turnover: 200 EUR
Transaction fee: 0,7 EUR
Decline fee: 0,7 EUR
Chargeback: 85 EUR
Visa/MasterCard
Processing fee: 4,5%
Rolling Reserve: 10% for 180 days
Processing currencies: USD, EUR, local currencies
Glossary
MDR – The merchant discount rate, sometimes also called transfer discount rate (TDR) is the rate charged to a merchant for payment processing services on debit and credit card transactions. Before accepting debit and credit cards as payment, the merchant must set up this service and agree to the rate.
Rolling reserve – Is that reserve retained by the payment provider/bank in order to settle possible repayments. It is “rolling” because it is a certain percentage of payments that is withheld for an agreed time.
Transaction fee – The fixed or percentage fee charged to the credit card company and the banks involved for each purchase.
Chargeback – The fee for the processing of a justified payment recovery of the buyer, e.g. in the case of fraudulent use of the card or an incorrect delivery.
SCA – Strong customer authentication
PSP – Payment Solution Provider
API – Application Programming Interface
