Receiving Credit Card Payments in Kenya

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Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday April 11, 2011 at 9:39:14:

I received an email from an online merchant in Kenya concerning a desire to sell online and accept credit card on the site. It reads like this:

I sell my products online worldwide but i don't have know how I can accept credit card in Kenya
I only have the ATM card for co-operative/Barclay's and Equity and Mpesa

Now actually there are already a lot of successful sellers in kenya who receive credit card payments on their website but the thing is that most of them do this by means of Paypal rather than with a merchant account.
There are two ways I know by which you could receive payments online in kenya from credit cards and they are:
- A Merchant account
- A Paypal account

Now having a merchant account would require a lot of things like a huge opening account balance in the US, charges and all that and so this makes Paypal usage in Kenya more preferred.
If you are thinking of being able to receive payments online in Kenya from a credit card, using a Paypal account should be preferred because of its ease, simplicity and cost.
All you need to be able to use this feature is to log in to your account and go to your merchant profile, enable credit card payments. You would then be allowed to receive payments on your site but you will need to make sure that your website is up to standard and offers customer protection and other requirements.

Other options available for receiving credit card payments in Kenya
- AlertPay offers this and it also comes with Instant payment Notification
- Kenyan banks offer merchant accounts too

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