Global aspiration for Indian businesses used to be reserved for large enterprises. Between 2000 and 2010, the businesses that grew a reputation of expanding beyond the Indian borders were likely owned by industrial giants such as Reliance Industries, Tata Group or software powerhouses like Wipro and Infosys. Building this reputation either required an endless war chest, or a discipline to pull out all the stops, and sometimes both.

But now, a decade later, a number of Indian companies are heading for international shores. While expanding into international markets comes with its own hurdles, it also helps drive more revenue and creates a competitive edge that can become a key differentiator in the market. In some cases, it is possible without additional investment.

Thanks to newer payments innovations it is easy to expand to new markets quickly. Customers are more likely to buy from your site repeatedly when you allow them to pay in their local currencies. In order to generate more revenue internationally, it’s crucial to partner with a Payment Service Provider that can extend proper multi-currency support.

What is multi-currency support?

Multi-currency support means that your customers can pay for your product or service using their local currency. Typically, buyers in most countries are forced to make purchases from Indian businesses in INR during international transactions, which can make the whole experience feel forced and reduce the buyer’s trust in the transaction and seller. This can also lead to abandoned carts and lost sales.

Listing prices in the local currency and allowing users to pay in the currency of their country can make your customers feel at home while completing purchases.

With Razorpay’s International Payments feature, we have introduced multi-currency support for up to 100 currencies including the popular United States Dollar, Great Britain Pounds, Singapore Dollars, Euro and UAE Dirham. See the full list of supported currencies here.

You can now list and accept payments in the local currency of your customers based on their location and preferences.

Multi-currency support and reduced chargebacks

Accepting payments in the local currency is not only convenient for customers but can also reduce the risk of chargebacks.

Transactions processed in local currency do not incur additional currency conversion charges in their bank statements. Unknown charges in the bank statement due to changed currencies can often lead to a poor buying experience. It is highly likely that customers will request a refund or a chargeback due to dissatisfaction with the added fees and may abandon the purchase altogether. This is something that you obviously don’t want. Which is where Razorpay comes into the picture. You can increase customer satisfaction and reduce cart abandonments by integrating with international payments on Razorpay.

Accept international payments with Razorpay

Accepting payments from customers abroad is made convenient and simple with Razorpay–that too for businesses from varied industries and sectors like travel, SaaS, education, retail, healthcare, etc.

International payment acceptance comes auto-enabled for eligible businesses. Other businesses can request international payment acceptance through a simple application form on their Razorpay dashboard.

Here’s how international payments on Razorpay boosts your growth

  • Accept payments through cards issued by foreign banks or PayPal wallet
  • Instant payment gateway integration and activation for eligible businesses
  • Support for nearly 100 currencies
  • Currency conversion by Razorpay
  • Settlements in INR
  • Competitive pricing at 3% per transaction 

Here’s what Unacademy, one of India’s hottest ed-tech startup has to say about Razorpay’s International Payments:

Partnering with Razorpay’s support for International Payments has played a pivotal role in enabling us to seamlessly cater to our international learners. The easy integration and setup, along with support for 100 currencies has helped us take our offering to a wider audience abroad.
– Gaurav Munjal, CEO & Founder, Unacademy

ICICI Lombard, a big player in the insurance industry, also has benefited vastly by integrating with us:

With customers making insurance bookings from across the world, it becomes extremely crucial to ensure that we offer a platform that enables them to pay in all currencies. Now, with Razorpay’s International Payments supporting 100 currencies, I believe that this process will only get easier and efficient for customers to make and accept payments across borders. We look forward to building happier customers with this association.
-Pintu Mahato, Product Manager, ICICI Lombard

You can accept payments from International cards using Razorpay Payment Gateway as well as different products in our product suite:

Subscriptions

Offer your international customers plans with automated recurring transactions on various payment modes in their own currency. Your customers can subscribe on the basis of fixed payments, quantities or specific usage.

Payment Links

Share links through email, SMS, chatbots or messengers to quickly accept payments from foreign customers. No matter where in the world your customer resides, all they need is the link to make a payment to you.

Invoices

Create and send invoices to allow your customers abroad to pay instantly. You can also enable your customers to make partial payments if required.

Payment Pages

The easiest way to accept payments from international customers with custom-branded hosted pages that require zero coding, website or app. Allow customers to make donations, pay fees or buy products easily from a foreign country.

You can also accept payments in international currencies from your customers using Razorpay APIs. In the API request, along with the “amount” field, you can now pass different values in the “currency” field. It is as simple as that.

curl -u rzp_test_26ccbdbfe0e84b:69b2e24411e384f91213f22a \
https://api.razorpay.com/v1/orders
-X POST \
--data "amount=50000" \
--data "currency=USD" \
--data "receipt=Receipt #RCPTID43" \
--data "payment_capture=1"
https://api.razorpay.com/v1/orders

Get global today

To conclude, for the longest time, businesses in India have been losing out on customers and business because of the inability to accept payments from other countries. Finding the right payments partner can give your international aspirations the shot in the arm it needs to stay a step ahead and a level above everybody else.

The internet has allowed running a business to not be constrained by geographies–why should accepting payments be? Read more about Razorpay’s International Payments acceptance feature here.

    Liked this article? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more.


    Shravan Chandra
    Author Shravan Chandra

    I am a passionate Product Manager and I love creating tech products that solve basic necessities of human lives. With 8+ years of experience, I have a track record of building world-class Products that are usable, feasible and valuable with high impact on KPI. My rich experience in Engineering, Product and analytics from Ola and Razorpay and strong educational background from IIM Calcutta and NIT Warangal helps me build, test, measure and validate the Products at a quicker pace and with great accuracy.

    2 Comments

    Write A Comment

    Disclaimer: Banking Services and Razorpay powered Current Account is provided by Scheduled Banks