USD currency for SEPA, EPS, Giropay, etc.

Hi @amalg,

Thank you for contacting us. Based on the Stripe docs, it looks like SEPA can only accept EUR but then settle in your local currency like USD. Check out the following docs for SEPA, specifically the presentment currency which is listed as only EUR.

https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit

Did you speak with a customer service rep at Stripe? If SEPA does support additional currencies beyond EUR I am happy to add it but my understanding is that it’s restricted to EUR.

Kind Regards,

Hi Mr. Clayton,

Thanks for the quick reply. This is the history of a chat with Stripe support 2 days ago;

(5:04:56 PM) *** Amal has joined the chat ***
(5:04:56 PM) *** Skills identified: billing_connect_payment_apis. ***
(5:04:56 PM) Amal: payment method support requires EUR currency
(5:05:03 PM) *** Chat assigned based on skills identified. ***
(5:05:03 PM) *** Ruthann has joined the chat ***
(5:05:07 PM) Amal: hey there.. so I am using WooCommerce with the stripe integration plugin
(5:05:10 PM) Ruthann : Hello
(5:05:16 PM) Amal: i want to accept payments for SEPA and Bancontact and some others
(5:05:32 PM) Amal: but an error pops up that says those payment methods require the store currency to be set to EUR
(5:05:37 PM) Amal: we are a US based USD shop
(5:05:43 PM) Amal: is this a limitation of the plugin or of Stripe itself?
(5:05:52 PM) Amal: can stripe properly convert those payments to USD
(5:06:44 PM) Ruthann : Oh yes on Stripe you can collect payments in any of the over 135 currency we process
(5:07:29 PM) Ruthann : SEPA does have some limitations on what region can except them but US is definitely supported
(5:08:48 PM) Amal: ok.. so this must be a limitation of the stripe plugin for woocommerce?
(5:09:13 PM) Amal: these are the errors i’m getting; https://amal.net/caps/2020-12-03-91S1xPb7v2.png
(5:09:44 PM) Ruthann : Thanks looking
(5:18:34 PM) Ruthann : Oh yes those are definitely limitations outside of Stripe.
(5:19:24 PM) Amal: ok thanks for looking
(5:19:40 PM) Ruthann : I am surprised on that however, as so many US business take these type payments I would maybe contact
(5:20:06 PM) Amal: so if an EU customer wanted to pay with sepa zone payment method for example, they could still pay our store in the USA in USD if the APIs were properly implemented in the plugin?
(5:20:15 PM) Ruthann : WooCommerce to see if it maybe some type of setting or gating they need to allow your account
(5:20:21 PM) Amal: yes that is in process now
(5:20:30 PM) Amal: almost on support chat with them .. just #2 in line
(5:21:16 PM) Ruthann : No they can pay in their currency and it gets converted to USD prior to being paid out to your external bank account

They could be wrong however.. or not fully understand what is necessary. For example, if their API requires we send a charge in EUR even though we get it dumped into our bank as USD, this is not going to solve the problem.

Thanks,
Amal

Hi @amalg,

The following reply from Ruthann explains it:

No they can pay in their currency and it gets converted to USD prior to being paid out to your external bank account

He is supporting what I had said about the customer paying in EUR but then it being converted to USD once it’s transferred to your bank.

You will need to use a currency switcher on your site to achieve this. There are some available which are free. They work by allowing your customer to select their checkout currency. When the customer selects EUR, then SEPA will be displayed on the checkout page.

You should still try our plugin, it has a 5 star rating for a reason ??

Kind Regards,

Ah bummer. I will check it out, but I will also ask Stripe to update their API to allow USD submissions to SEPA and others and THEY do the exchange conversion on the fly (like credit card companies do when foreign cards buy goods in USD).

@amalg Keep me updated on how Stripe replies. If they decide to support it I can add it to the plugin.

Kind Regards,

Ok perfect, will do.

I have made the request to Stripe that either on demand currency exchange be integrated into the payment method API or a separate currency exchange rate API be created such that it can be called immediately prior to the payment method API so the charge amount can be converted to EUR at the current exchange rate just prior to the call.

That got me thinking.. rather than wait for these big companies to sloggingly move toward common sense.. what about your plugin do the same? I found a ton of APIs for this on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3139879/how-do-i-get-currency-exchange-rates-via-an-api-such-as-google-finance but most notable was the European Central Bank

Docs: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/euro_reference_exchange_rates/html/index.en.html#dev

Data: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml

Seems like a cinch to do this yeah? Put some notes on the order when exchange rates are used like what the current exchange rate was, what the price was in EUR sent to the API, etc.

I’d much rather explore this than futz around with multi-currency plugins.

Hi @amalg,

It’s not just a simple matter of performing an exchange rate calculation. In addition to integrating with 3rd party API’s, the Stripe plugin would have to be responsible for displaying all order amounts in the exchanged currency, product amounts, cart amounts etc.

It would require in-depth testing and code changes that frankly don’t make sense since the multi-currency plugins work well already and do all that for you.

Setting up multi-currency shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to setup using one of the existing solutions.

Kind Regards,

I think you might be over-thinking things a bit.. when someone in the EU buys something from a US website in USD with a credit card, they see USD the entire way through the transaction and the bank or financial institution does the exchange and they see the exchange on their statement.

If someone in the EU wants to pay with SEPA and they come to our site and buy something for $100USD and go through checkout and all that, seeing USD the entire time, then when they finally pay the EUR conversion is submitted to the payment method API and they see oh, it’ll be 88 euro (or whatever).. this is perfectly fine in my books and most customers would understand it as well, without all that extra fluff.

Hi @amalg,

Thanks for the explanation. If you have development experience then you could implement this desired functionality using the plugins built in filters.

We have an in-depth documentation site showing all the customization points.

https://docs.paymentplugins.com/wc-stripe/api/

I’ll make a note to research your suggestion on my end.

Kind Regards,