I feel like such a fool. I really should have known there would be another truck-sized spanner about to hit me in the head in my ongoing mission to get an online payment gateway for my website.
Am I surprised? No. Am I bitter? I’m bitterer than a mouthful of coffee grinds laced with lemon juice.
I’ve just been slapped down by the latest obstacle in the story of my attempt to first open a business bank account and then get a payment gateway for the website of my very small magazine publishing business. To read the story so far, click here.
So, here’s the latest chapter in the tale. I’ve just had my meeting with Imran Zaidi, my relationship manager from Mashreq Bank. The idea was that we would meet up so I could sign and stamp about 12,000 documents (ok, about eight documents) and show Imran the original copies of items like my trade license, my passport, etc. It should be mentioned that Imran had traipsed all the way to my offices in Media City, saving me a trip to his office in Dubai Outlet Zone. Gold star for that kind of service, Mashreq.
We had met in a café, I had a green tea, Imran had a cappuccino and things were going fine. That was until I noticed something on an addendum document that read, ‘One time set-up fee: $2,500’.
“What’s this set-up fee Imran, do I need to pay $2,500?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right…” he said.
“Why is this the first time I’ve ever heard about this fee?”
“Did Hassaan not give you the details in a proposal?”
“Nope.”
Imran gets on the phone to Hassaan and a brief discussion takes place regarding my not having been told about the fee schedule – apparently some documents were meant to be sent to me but they weren’t. While Imran whispered into his mobile, I worked out that $2,500 is just under AED 10,000. And guess what, it turns out that the set-up fee isn’t the only fee I’d not been told about. Imran gets off the phone and tells me there is also an annual fee of $2,500 (AED 9,200) as well as a security fee of $10,000 (AED 37,000), which is refundable but that is a moot point if you don’t have it in the first place.
I’ll spare you the tears and histrionics that ensued over the next few minutes as the icy fingers of disappointment gripped me about the throat and squeezed. Silly me had assumed that taking a three per cent cut of every transaction would be sufficient payment for the bank’s efforts, how naïve and innocent that belief seems now. It was going to cost me about AED 60,000 to get this payment gateway set up – even though I was not even certain it would generate any revenue.
“Stop everything then Imran,” I said bitterly [and dramatically]. “I don’t have the money to do this. I’m going to have to forget the whole thing.” [Sob.]
“No, wait,” Imran said. “I will talk to my compliance department and put a special case forward that would waive the annual fee and the security deposit. But the set-up fee is non-negotiable because this is passed onto us from the credit card agencies…”
So, I may be able to get the gateway for about AED 9,200 that’s if Imran can get the other fees waived. And that is a monumentally huge ‘IF’, he tells me.
Still, that’s AED 9,200 that I didn’t think I’d need to find. This is on top of the AED 25,000 I need to pay this week to renew my trade license. What to do? The outgoings for a shoestring budget start-up seem never-ending, I’m beginning to see why so many fall at the first few hurdles. Just FYI, Imran tells me that in general, a small business should expect to pay the bank a minimum of about AED 15,000 to get an online payment gateway up and running. After that there is an ongoing transaction fee of 3.5 per cent (but they will reduce it to three per cent).
By the end of this meeting, three things are set in motion. First, Imran has gone off to make the argument to his compliance department that the Mashreq Bank-generated fees should be waived in my case. Second, I’m deciding whether I can come up with AED 9,200 assuming the compliance department feels sorry for me and obliges. Third, I’m back to square one on the ‘there must be another way’ thinking process.
THREE WEEKS LATER, ‘COME BACK PAYPAL, ALL IS FORGIVEN’
I haven’t heard a word from Imran since the meeting described above so I’m assuming his compliance department laughed in his face at the suggestion of waiving fees. So I am back to the start and still asking the question, ‘how will I take payment from people via my website?’ It looks like it’s going to have to be our old frenemy Paypal. Apparently, you can link a Paypal account to a credit card and retrieve funds that way if you’re in a country like the UAE where you can’t link it to a bank account. We’ll see. I’m having another meeting with my web developer next week to discuss. I’ll let you know how that goes.
THREE WEEKS AND ONE DAY LATER
I have to take back what I said about not having heard a word from Imran since our last meeting. He just called me and surprised me with the news that the Mashreq compliance department has agreed to waive all the usual fees for setting up my online payment gateway except the AED 9,200 one. I did not expect that! According to Imran, they have never done this before for anyone. Before me, the cheapest price for this was AED 15,000. So, next step is that my developer will test the integration link (Notice how I write that like I know what it means?). But there is a twist to this tale... I've just been told about another option, called Payfort. I'll be looking into that and writing another blog about it, so stay tuned if this is the kind of thing you're interested in.
For more blogs form CPI Financial, Visit our website.http://www.cpifinancial.net/blog
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear about your not-so-great experience with the online payment gateway service. However, PaymentsMe, a Qatar-based Accept Payments Online in Qatar, can prove to a delightful surprise.
ReplyDelete