Don’t Shy Away From European E-Commerce Customers, Partner Smartly Instead

An acquiring bank is a bank or financial institution that has the power to process credit or debit card (e.g., MasterCard or Visa) payments for products and/or services for a merchant.

In the majority of cases, U.S. online merchants’ acquiring banks will typically be one of the many national banks across the country. However, in order to legally conduct e-commerce business within Europe and the U.K., an acquiring bank must have a European license from the Payment Services Directive (PSD) created by the European Commission. Most domestic acquiring banks don't have this license. A recent study shows that over 44 percent of surveyed merchants don't know whether the independent sales organization who handles their payments is affiliated with their acquiring bank in the foreign countries they service. This is especially true for U.S. merchants.