e 3 a s h i g R E F L E C T I O N S

merchant accounts

In the current pursuit to explore available options for our upcoming ecommerce website I have seen wonders. For a lay person to have never heard about merchant account is perfectly fine. For the manager of the local branch of my bank to have never in his life heard about merchant accounts is a disaster. For him to tell me that there is no such a thing as merchant accounts in UAE is total mischief. For me to call Comtrust and learn from them that merchant accounts do exist and that they are actually provided by the same bank whose branch manager I talked to is beyond my comprehension. Talk about ignorance!

Talking of Comtrust, they are the only online credit card authorisers in the region. However, their charges are unacceptably high at Dh.5700 setup fees, Dh.200 monthly charges and Dh.2 per transaction which dumps a good chunk of your profit into their account. This, coupled with bank merchant fees of 3.5-4.5% per transaction is probably going to bring any small business to it?s knees.

Thankfully, available overseas alternatives are easier to setup, cheaper to use and more straight forward to maintain.

The long awaited underwater casing for my canon has just arived and I look forwards to taking it 120 feet-under into the depths of Khour Fakkan sea tomorrow. I hope the weather remains ok till then and I hope I do not come back all bruised, tanned and itchy as was the case last time I went diving.