How multi-currency support works
A product can handle several currencies at four points, and each is a separate decision:
- Pricing: the customer sees and pays a price in a familiar currency
- Processing: the acquirer or bank authorises and clears in that currency
- Holding: balances are kept per currency, with no forced conversion
- Payout: funds are paid out in the currency the recipient asks for
What multi-currency support needs underneath
Currencies differ in their number of decimal places, so amounts are stored in each currency's minor unit together with its ISO 4217 code. A balance is never a single number: it is one figure per currency.
A conversion is booked as two legs, a debit in one currency and a credit in the other, with the rate and the margin recorded. The platform also holds, or can reach, an account in each currency it settles, at a bank or through a partner.
Why multi-currency support matters to a product
A merchant settled in the currency it sells in avoids a conversion on every sale and another on every refund. A business account that holds euros, pounds and dollars lets a company pay suppliers without converting twice.
The cost is operational: more bank accounts, more reconciliations, and exposure to exchange-rate moves on any balance the platform itself carries.
Multi-currency support or currency conversion?
- Currency conversion
- The exchange itself: one currency turned into another at a rate. Multi-currency support is what lets a product put that exchange off until the customer chooses.
- Dynamic currency conversion
- An offer at the terminal or checkout to pay in the card's own currency, at the merchant's rate. The merchant still sells and is settled in one currency.
- Local acquiring
- Processing a card payment through an acquirer in the cardholder's country. It concerns where a payment is processed, not which currencies a product can hold.
Where Multi-currency support shows up in a platform
Modules that do the work
- FXCurrency conversion with live rates, your margins and the liquidity provider you choose.
- LedgerThe double-entry book of record behind every balance, fee and transfer.
- Accounts & IBANsCustomer accounts with their own IBANs, on the partner bank and the rails you choose.
- PayoutsMoney out to bank accounts, cards and wallets, on the rail that fits each payment.