A key step to growing your business internationally is to build your global payment strategy. A strategy that ensures you can can collect payments in the local preferred payment method no matter where you operate. Yes, you can always go set up numerous payment methods one-by-one but that’s inefficient and expensive. To operate globally with ease, you need universal payment methods; payment methods which are accepted in multiple regions and countries.

In Europe, the most recent universal payment method is Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). SEPA covers 28 European states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Monaco and San Marino. In Europe alone, there are 28 countries, 11 different currencies and every country has its own preferred payment method. Can you imagine having to handle all these different payment permutations individually?!?

SEPA allows you to make cashless payments across all European countries, and then some, using one single domestic payment method – No more fragmented markets for Euro payments.

To process payments in SEPA, there are a few key elements you need to setup:

1. A bank account denominated in Euros
2. A bank willing to accept SEPA payments or a 3rd party provider to process for you
3. Ability to collect SEPA payment method information in compliance with SEPA
4. Ability to process transactions

If you haven’t dealt with SEPA before, it works differently than credit cards. One key thing to keep in mind is that payments are not guaranteed upon service activation. For example, if you’re shipping durable goods with a cost to enable a service, you should be aware that a subscriber may receive the product before the her payment has been processed.

With that being said, Zuora is committed to out-of-the-box full stack support for SEPA sales, transaction processing and gateway reconciliation. Using Zuora’s Payment Pages, you’ll be able to capture authorized SEPA payments, manage mandated agreements between you and your subscribers, withdraw funds on a recurring schedule, set terms & conditions and also notify your subscribers when changes occur. Zuora partners with GoCardless to help you with SEPA processing and Zuora leverages gateway reconciliation to help you better understand transaction settlements.
With Zuora’s SEPA support, you can focus on building strategies and business models to expand your business to new territories, we’ll take care of making sure you can operate successfully!