Connecting sites to online payment in Ukraine
Many have already encountered, and many have yet to face, connecting their projects to online payment. In this article I will share my experience in this area.
The post does not contain unique information, everything described here can, if desired, be found in other sources. Nevertheless, reading this article is likely to save you a lot of time in the future, as well as tell you about many little things and opportunities, the existence of which, perhaps, you do not even suspect.
And so, for starters, let's consider what methods of payment online basically exist:
- SMS
- Bank cards
- Bank Payment Systems (PayPal)
- Non-bank payment systems (Webmoney, BitCoin)
- Cash terminals
In Ukraine, they are all represented to one degree or another. In particular, of non-banking payment systems, Webmoney is the absolute leader, although its prevalence is much lower than Visa / Mastercard, Privat24 is definitely out of banking attention ...
And so we will return directly to receiving payments. When connecting payment, we have 2 options:
- Connect all possible payment systems through the aggregator
- Connect each payment system separately
Aggregators
At first glance, the aggregator seems to be an extremely attractive proposal: you need to install only 1 script, conclude only 1 contract, or even work without it, do not bother with the choice of payment systems, because the aggregator did everything for you.
In reality, everything is a little different. Looking at such advantages, we forget about the cons.
Firstly, by connecting an aggregator, we overpay. At best, you have to pay 3% of the amount paid.
Secondly, an extra element is created in the payment chain, which on the one hand potentially reduces the number of users who complete the purchase process, and on the other hand creates an additional point of failure.
Thirdly, all aggregators in one form or another have restrictions on the amount and timing of withdrawals.
Also, to connect to Webmoney payment, you still have to get a personal certificate and tie your wallet to the system.
If all of the above does not scare you, I can recommend Interkas on my own as an aggregator quite good for Ukraine, with instant connection and a 3% commission.
SMS
Otherwise, we continue consideration. Let's start with payment via SMS, here are its characteristic features:
- Only suitable for inexpensive goods / services (<20UAH)
- High commission 50-64%
- Available to almost everyone
- Few ready-made modules for CMS
Immediately I foresee questions of the type: “55% of the commission is written on site X, but you say that less than 60% does not happen.” So on 99% of SMS aggregator sites they write% of the cost of SMS without VAT. Those. percent of the real value is 1.2 times lower.
Now let's move on to the steps necessary to connect such a payment:
First we need to choose a partner for receiving payment. We will not consider the option of opening our short number, it will come out a little expensive. Nevertheless, few people know that there are 2 types of SMS aggregators:
The first takes higher than the% commission, but provides prefixes on short numbers for free. With such an aggregator, you will receive an average of 36 kopecks with SMS cost of 1 UAH. Most of these aggregators and you can easily find the right one in the search.
But there is also the second type, in which there is a monthly fee of about 100 UAH / month for 1 prefix on 1 number, but the average% increases from 36 to 40 kopecks from 1 UAH, which can be very beneficial for large volumes. Of the aggregators of the second type, only Alpha SMS is known to me , unfortunately they work only by agreement and only with legal entities.
Webmoney
We turn to the consideration of non-bank payment systems. I don’t see any reason to connect anything other than Webmoney in Ukraine, since the share of users of other systems is striving for IE6's share in the browser market. The characteristic features of Webmoney are as follows:
- Any amount of payment
- Minimum commission
- Low availability (Alas, among users of the Internet, the share of WM owners is small)
- The presence of modules for most CMS
And so, what do we need to connect the payment?
In case you are an individual, you will need a Personal (25-30WMZ) or Initial (2-5WMZ) certificate in the system.
The initial certificate is obtained from the personalizer , it costs 5-10 times cheaper than the Personal, but it imposes significant restrictions on the amount of payment acceptance, namely:
type of wm currency | in a day | in Week | per month |
WMR | 5000 | 15,000 | 30000 |
Wmz | 200 | 500 | 1000 |
WME | 140 | 375 | 750 |
WMU | 1500 | 4000 | 8000 |
WMB | 100,000 | 300,000 | 600,000 |
Wmg | fifty | 150 | 300 |
A personal certificate is obtained from the Registrars , it is more expensive and does not have such restrictions.
You can cash WMU without additional fees (except for the standard 0.8%), using the card withdrawal service, for example, Delta or Platinum Bank, in which there are no fees for non-cash transfer of funds and free withdrawals in a wide ATMOS ATM network.
What about legal entities? For those who work on a common systemtaxation, you will also need to obtain a personal certificate for a responsible employee (certificates for legal entities are not issued), and then conclude an agreement with the Ukrainian Guarantee Agency. As a result, the money will go to your wallet, from where you can withdraw it to your current account at any time, minus the system fee - 0.8%.
If you work on a simplified taxation system , then by law you do not have the right to accept payments in the form of non-monetary funds, therefore you will need to conclude an agreement with the same Ukrainian Guarantee Agency to accept payments without a Webmoney purse directly to your current account. The commission in this case will be 2%.
Payment terminals
Characteristic features of the terminals are:
- Any amount of payment
- High availability
- Relatively high commission (3-5%)
- Difficulty connecting without aggregators
- Lack of modules under CMS
At first glance, it does not look very rosy. However, not many people know that it is also possible to accept payments through Privatbank terminals, which have a low commission (from 1%), are very easy to connect for payment, and in terms of prevalence they are practically not inferior to other terminal networks. Connection of such terminals is carried out through acquiring liqpay for individuals and Internet-acquiring of Privatbank for legal entities. We’ll talk about this later in the discussion of acquiring payment cards, as both services are closely interconnected.
Payment cards, for individuals
And so finally we got to the most common payment method on the Internet - payment cards.
For individuals, the only and no alternative payment acceptance options is the Privatbank liqpay system.
The system has a number of restrictions, namely the acceptance of cards of only CIS banks, as well as acceptance limits of not more than $ 250 (or the equivalent in another currency) for a one-time payment from the card and not more than $ 500 / month for 1 card.
The maximum amount available for withdrawal in cash is $ 50,000 / month.
Among other things:
- an inconvenient verification system with an SMS password (not to be confused with 3D-secure / SecureCode)
- if the user has not paid with this card through the system before, the payment can be verified up to a day, but I have not noticed this in practice for a long time.
You can also connect the payment through the terminals of Privatbank. But here I’ll make a small remark, after the introduction of the new payment interface, the choice of payment through the terminals is made so unobvious that it is worth choosing the payment method (card or terminal) in the site’s interface and not providing the acquiring interface.
After payment, the money is fully transferred to your virtual account in the liqpay system, from where you can either spend it to replenish your mobile phone, send it to another user of the system, or withdraw to a card (this is exactly where the commission is taken).
The commission and the limits for withdrawing not to the Privatbank card are rather gloomy, therefore we will consider the option with the Privat card.
Option one, simple:
- We open a free card "Universal"
- We withdraw money to it $ 0.55 + $ 0.5
- We pay in a retail network or withdraw at any ATM (commission 1%)
Total we have when withdrawing in cash $ 0.55 + 1.495%
The second option, a complex one, is relevant for revolutions from 8400 UAH / month
- Open a debit GOLD card (service 80UAH / month)
- We withdraw money to it $ 0.55 + $ 0.5
- We transfer money by payment at the bank account or card of another bank (for example, Delta or Platinum) 3UAH
- We withdraw cash at an ATM - 0UAH
Total we have when withdrawing in cash $ 0.55 + 0.5% + 3 UAH + 80 UAH / month
Payment cards, for legal entities
For legal entities, the situation is a little more rosy, but the choice of banks providing online acquiring is also small:
Bank | Commisia |
Privatbank | 1-3.5% |
Ukreximbank | 4-5% |
Raiffeisen | Individually |
FUIB | 2-2.5% |
Finance and Credit | 3% + 1200 UAH connection |
Pivdenny | 2-3% |
Alfa Bank | Individually |
From personal experience, when the company I work for connected acquiring for one of our projects, we received rejections from everyone except Privat and Pivdenny. Our banks are very afraid to connect Internet acquiring for projects that do not sell anything that is clearly tangible and preferably within the country. It took about 2 weeks to wait for answers from banks and agree on conditions with Pivdenny.
You can certainly do the same and spend several weeks on approvals and refusals, but I cannot help but notice the unique conditions of Privatbank. They connect everyone in real time after making a public offer. All that is required of you is to register on the site, accept the offer and indicate the details for the transfer of funds. Moreover, about half of the cards in Ukraine were issued by Privatbank, which means that the% of cards for which you will pay less than the fee for acquiring is very high.
Of the minuses, not very high initial limits can be called:
- 400 thousand UAH / month, in total for all payments
- $ 10 thousand / month for 1 card
and also the same inconvenient payment system with SMS password (not to be confused with 3D-secure / SecureCode) .
As for the tariffs for acquiring, they are as follows:
Payment | to the account / card of PrivatBank * | to countries account ua / ru ** |
---|---|---|
from PrivatBank card | 1% | 1.5% |
from other cards | 3% | 3.5% |
cash (E-Commerce Cash) | 1% | 1% |
* Funds are transferred automatically to a card / account minus a commission
** Funds are credited within 1 banking day
And what about Privat24?
99% of Privat24 users have Privatbank cards, so you can safely leave only acquiring cards and not connect Privat24.
But what about the description of the API and the connection process?
All APIs are available on the sites of payment systems, and the process of connecting from opening the first page of the documentation to the start of accepting payments will take you no more than an hour. Therefore, I see no reason to dwell on it separately.
Last personal experience
I have my own small project, rather a hobby. The cost of the service is 1.5 / 3UAH, so SMS payment is also a pretty acceptable option. Connected webmoney / sms / cards / terminals
It took 3 hours to connect, of which cards / terminals and webmoney took 45 minutes each, SMS 1.5 hours, mainly due to the length of the process of connecting the necessary prefixes on short numbers and the coordination of the text about the cost of SMS on the site. Payment
ratio
- Cards 60%
- SMS 30%
- Webmoney 10%
- Terminals - 1 payment for the whole time
Thank you for your attention.
UPD. It was inaccurate in terminology, in the context of the article:
Individuals - ordinary citizens, not entrepreneurs.
Legal entities - companies + FLP.