Low Cost Kiwi Payment Gateway To Aid SMEs & Charities

A greater number of New Zealand SMEs and charities will now be able to open e-commerce stores with the launch of a low-cost credit card gateway with transaction fees as low as 0.65%.

Swipe HQ Checkout is a virtual credit card merchant facility which allows businesses to accept credit card transactions without the need to utilise a terminal and at a lower cost than competitors.

Created by Kiwi cloud technology company Optimizer HQ, the new gateway will reduce the cost for SME's wanting to enter the online shopping arena.

Optimizer HQ CEO Manas Kumar says in the past, low volume online traders have struggled to make an e-commerce venture profitable as banks and offshore payment gateways charge a fixed monthly fee on top of an initial set up cost and other fees, which can be upwards of 4.5%.

Kumar says with the creation of SwipeHQ Checkout, he is hoping to reduce the barriers to creating e-commerce sites by only charging a 2.75% flat per transaction cost and, for registered charities an even lower rate of just 0.65%.

"As someone who started as a small business owner, I'm aware of what pressure fixed monthly overheads can put on a business's cash flow. I wanted to help break down some of the cost barriers associated with getting Kiwi businesses online. That means we are able to offer no monthly or set up costs and no contracts”.

Kumar says adding credit cards as another payment option for invoices also has several advantages to SMEs as it improves the average age of debtors and cash flow.

He believes it will also help to encourage businesses to export their products and services and allow owners to view their sales from any location using a smartphone.

Kumar is offering web designers and other potential partners an incentive with the new service, providing them with a commission for referring customers that extends for the lifetime of the account.

The industry leading commission is calculated at 0.10% of every dollar processed by customers referred by the partners, says Kumar.

Optimizer HQ was established in 2003 as a web development company and now provides a raft of ground-breaking, cloud based technologies to businesses who want to find and grow their customer base in the online market.

Kumar, 32, is the second youngest chief executive in the world to be listed on the Deutsche Boerse, behind Puma’s Jochen Zeitz.

Swipe HQ Checkout is the first credit card processing innovation to be released to market by Optimizer HQ. The company’s first product, Swipe HQ Reader, is awaiting the international announcement of new industry standards for processing of mobile card payments from credit card companies before it goes live.

For more information visit SwipeHQ.com.