International Payment Gateways: 9 Compared (2026)

Compare 9 international payment gateway providers by merchant eligibility, payment methods, currencies, settlement, integration, refunds, disputes, and total cost.

No provider is right for every merchant. First, remove any service that cannot onboard your legal entity or business model. Then verify your customers' markets, payment methods, currencies, and transaction sizes. Compare the complete money path: processing, cross-border and foreign exchange charges, settlement, refunds, and disputes. For small, frequent payments, model the fixed fee at your real order values because it can matter more than a modest difference in the percentage rate.

How was this international payment gateway comparison built?

This guide compares nine international payment gateway providers for which sufficient current official documentation was available across the evaluation criteria below. Providers are listed alphabetically; inclusion is not a ranking, endorsement, or claim that these are the only suitable options.

The scope is online payment acceptance for cross-border ecommerce, gaming, content, subscriptions, and digital goods. Merchant-of-record services are outside the comparison because they take on different tax, compliance, and commercial responsibilities.

Cost review includes processing, method fees, international additions, foreign exchange (FX), settlement transfers, refunds, disputes, setup fees, monthly fees, and minimums when disclosed. A blank universal rate is not estimated. It is treated as quote-specific or not publicly disclosed.

Providers are ordered alphabetically. This is not a ranking. “Best fit” describes a likely evaluation scenario, not a performance promise.

Which 9 international payment gateway providers made the comparison?

The first matrix covers eligibility, customer reach, payment methods, and currencies. “Method-specific” means the provider publishes a matrix rather than promising every method to every merchant.

Source: Official scope and currency documentation from Adyen [1–3], Airwallex [4–6], Braintree [7–8], Checkout.com [9–10], ConnectPay [13–15], PayPal [16–17], Stripe [18–19], Tazapay [22–25], and Worldpay [26–28].

The second matrix focuses on commercial and operating terms. Public prices are examples from the named market or product, not universal offers.

Source: Official pricing, settlement, integration, and post-payment pages [1–2, 5–6, 7–12, 13–17, 20–24, 26–29]. Prices shown above use the page's own market and product scope.

What should you do with this table?

Cross out a provider when a required field is account-specific and sales cannot confirm it in writing. Do not treat a method logo, currency count, or country directory as proof that your entity can enable that capability.

Ask each finalist for a configuration sheet. It should name the approved merchant entity, customer markets, methods, presentment currencies, settlement currencies, settlement schedule, reserves, limits, refund flow, dispute rules, and every applicable fee.

How do presentment, processing, and settlement currencies differ?

Presentment currency is what the shopper sees. Processing currency is the currency sent through the payment route. Settlement currency is what reaches the merchant's balance or bank account.

Those currencies can be the same or different. When they differ, the provider, scheme, bank, or another participant may perform conversion. The FX rate basis, markup, conversion point, and refund treatment then matter.

Use this four-part test for every important currency pair:

1. Can the shopper see and pay the exact presentment currency?
2. Does the selected payment method process that currency for your merchant entity?
3. Can you settle without conversion into a matching balance or bank account?
4. If conversion occurs, what base rate, markup, timing, and refund rule apply?

Payment flow from shopper market and presentment currency through payment method and processing currency to conversion and merchant settlement, with a gross-to-net reconciliation rail.

Braintree's documentation is a useful warning. It supports a larger presentment set than the settlement set available to many accounts, and multi-currency settlement needs approval and configuration [7]. Airwallex documents an FX fee when processing and settlement currencies differ, while eligible like-for-like settlement can avoid that fee [6]. Adyen's payout matrix also shows that settlement options depend on acquiring region, method, and bank location [2].

Source: Provider currency and fee documentation [2, 5–7, 11, 19, 23, 27].

How should you evaluate local payment methods?

Start with customer demand, not a provider's total method count. A useful method must be available to your legal entity, visible to the intended customer, supported in the required currency, compatible with your checkout, and operable through refunds and reconciliation.

For each market, build a method card with these fields:

• Customer and merchant eligibility.
• Currency and minimum or maximum amount.
• Redirect, QR, wallet, bank, card, or voucher flow.
• One-time, recurring, and saved-payment support.
• Authorization or confirmation behavior.
• Refund, reversal, dispute, and expiry rules.
• Settlement currency, schedule, holidays, and cutoffs.
• API, webhook, dashboard, and reconciliation fields.

Recurring businesses need an extra check. A method that works for a first purchase may not support merchant-initiated renewals. Digital-goods and gaming businesses should also confirm amount limits, delivery timing, and evidence requirements before automating fulfillment.

Source: Method-level capability tables and implementation guides [3–4, 8, 10, 15, 17, 20, 25, 28].

What compliance, authentication, and risk controls matter?

A gateway can reduce the card data handled by your systems, but outsourcing checkout does not remove every Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) obligation. PCI Security Standards Council guidance says eligible ecommerce merchants using SAQ A still retain specified responsibilities, including controls for their ecommerce pages [30]. Confirm your validation path with the acquiring provider or qualified assessor.

For cards, ask how EMV 3-D Secure (3DS) data, challenges, exemptions, and liability outcomes are handled. EMVCo describes frictionless and challenge flows, with transaction and device data exchanged so the issuer can authenticate the shopper [31]. A provider should explain how 3DS interacts with saved cards, subscriptions, soft declines, and regional rules.

Strong customer authentication (SCA) applies to in-scope European electronic payments, with exemptions and transaction treatment defined by applicable rules [32]. Do not assume that turning on 3DS globally is the correct policy. Ask who requests exemptions, who handles an issuer challenge, and what the checkout does when authentication fails.

Risk review should cover more than fraud screening. Confirm merchant category eligibility, prohibited products, reserves, rolling holds, transaction limits, account takeover, card testing, velocity controls, refund abuse, dispute evidence, and manual review. The provider should also explain which controls are configurable and which are managed for you.

Source: PCI Security Standards Council, EMVCo, and European Commission guidance [30–32].

How can you choose a gateway without relying on a generic ranking?

Use the four-pass shortlist below. It is designed to prevent an attractive price from hiding a critical eligibility or money-movement gap.

Four-pass international payment gateway selection flow: eligibility knockouts, customer payment-path testing, money-path review, then operations and total-cost scoring with a red-flag override.

Pass 1: Apply eligibility knockouts

Remove a provider if it cannot confirm your legal entity, business model, merchant category, customer markets, transaction range, or required payment type. A sales promise is not enough; request written product and underwriting confirmation.

Pass 2: Test the customer payment path

Choose your five most important customer-market and payment-method combinations. Test eligibility, currency, checkout flow, authentication, recurring support, refund behavior, and final customer status for each combination.

Pass 3: Trace the money path

Map presentment, processing, settlement, conversion, fees, reserves, bank transfer, cutoffs, and holidays. Finance should be able to reconcile gross amount, fee, FX, refund, dispute, and net settlement without a manual mystery step.

Pass 4: Score operations and total cost

Score each provider from 0 to 2 on integration, webhook reliability, reporting, reconciliation, refunds, disputes, support, change control, and total cost at your real order values. Use 0 for absent, 1 for partial or conditional, and 2 for confirmed.

Add a red-flag override: any unconfirmed must-have prevents selection, regardless of score. This keeps a high aggregate score from masking a missing local method, settlement currency, or recurring capability.

For small, frequent payments, run at least three order-value scenarios. On a US$2 payment, a US$0.30 fixed fee equals 15% before the percentage fee. On a US$10 payment, it equals 3%. On a US$100 payment, it equals 0.3%. These are arithmetic illustrations, not provider quotes.

Source: Original HaiPay editorial decision framework; provider fields are grounded in the official comparison sources [1–29].

What should change in your gateway review by market?

These notes identify what to verify. They do not state that every compared provider, or the publisher, supports every named method.

Hong Kong

Confirm HKD presentment and settlement, the card schemes your customers use, and any local wallet or bank-transfer flow your checkout requires. Ask how the provider documents refunds and disputes for Hong Kong entities, and whether settlement to a local account avoids an FX conversion step. For a market-level breakdown, see our Hong Kong payment gateway guide.

Philippines

Test GCash, Maya, GrabPay, and QR Ph against your exact ecommerce flow rather than treating “wallets” as one category. QR Ph is an interoperable national QR standard, while individual wallets and merchant products have separate onboarding and online-payment rules [33–35].

Thailand

Verify PromptPay and TrueMoney separately because a bank-linked QR flow and a wallet flow can have different eligibility, confirmation, refund, and reconciliation behavior. Bank of Thailand materials identify PromptPay as payment infrastructure, while TrueMoney publishes its own merchant and online-payment products [36–37].

Singapore

Include PayNow in the shortlist when Singapore-dollar bank payments matter. Confirm whether the provider supports the required merchant setup, online flow, reconciliation reference, refunds, and settlement path rather than relying on a PayNow logo [38].

India

Treat UPI as its own acceptance flow, not as proof of local-card acquiring. NPCI describes UPI as supporting merchant payments, QR, intent, and two-factor authentication; a provider still must confirm merchant eligibility and the exact integration [39].

United Arab Emirates

Ask for AED presentment, approved settlement currencies, card routing, wallets, and every FX component in writing. If a bank-transfer flow is mandatory, remove any provider that cannot enable it for your entity; the publisher's current pricing page states that UAE bank transfers are not supported [40].

Malaysia

Confirm the merchant entity, MYR presentment and settlement, target methods, recurring support, and refund behavior. Request the method-level configuration because regional availability does not prove that every Malaysian customer flow is enabled.

United Kingdom

Map GBP presentment and settlement, card authentication, bank-payment options, recurring transactions, and dispute operations. Ask how the provider documents SCA treatment and how finance reconciles conversion when the customer pays in another currency.

Saudi Arabia

Confirm SAR checkout and settlement needs, the card and non-card methods your customers use, merchant eligibility, and Arabic checkout requirements. Obtain the FX basis and any cross-border or settlement-transfer charge in the final quote.

Vietnam

Verify VND presentment, the exact wallet or bank flow, refund availability, order-status timing, and settlement currency. Do not infer online support from a provider's general Southeast Asia coverage.

Taiwan

Confirm TWD presentment, card schemes, any required non-card methods, amount limits, refunds, and settlement route. Ask for a test account that exposes the same methods your production entity will receive.

Source: Official payment-system and wallet pages for the named methods [33–39], plus the current HaiPay pricing page for the UAE limitation [40].

Where may HaiPay fit, and where may it not fit?

Because HaiPay publishes this guide, we want to be transparent about how we present our own service. We have not included HaiPay in the nine-provider matrix or given ourselves a ranking. If you are considering us, we encourage you to ask us to confirm the same requirements in writing that you would ask of any other provider.

HaiPay may be a practical international payment gateway if you want to accept international card payments while also offering local payment methods and multi-currency support. Our current public pricing starts at 2.5% + US$0.30 for eligible card transactions and 0.8% for local payment methods. We also list no setup or monthly fees, a US$0.30 fee for each merchant-initiated refund, a US$15 transfer fee when settling in USD, and a US$1,000 minimum monthly processing volume for IC++ pricing [40].

Our public pages describe support for 140+ currencies and 150+ local payment methods [40–41]. These are platform-wide figures, not a promise that every merchant can use every method or settle in every currency. What we can offer your business depends on your contracting entity, customer markets, transaction profile, product configuration, and final quote. For card payments, acceptance through Visa, Mastercard, JCB, and other major schemes is also subject to approval and availability for your account.

We also want to be clear about the situations where we may not meet your requirements. If you need one settlement timetable to be guaranteed across every market, a payment method that is unavailable to your legal entity, or commercial terms outside your approved quote, HaiPay may not be the right fit. For example, if your UAE payment flow specifically requires bank transfer, we cannot currently support that component [40].

Before you decide, tell us about your legal entity, customer markets, required payment methods and currencies, expected monthly volume and average order value, settlement needs, and operational requirements. We can then confirm in writing what applies to your account, including fees, FX treatment, reserves, refunds, disputes, settlement terms, and implementation scope.

You can also review our current pricing, local payment method coverage, and guide to local versus cross-border acquiring before requesting a tailored quote.

Source: HaiPay public pricing and product pages [40–42]. HaiPay’s pricing page lists settlement as typically T+5 calendar days. Calendar days include weekends and public holidays. Many providers quote settlement in business days, so convert both to the same basis before comparing timelines.While the actual settlement timeline is confirmed in each merchant’s quote based on the contracting entity, processing volume, and transaction quality.

Editorial disclosure: HaiPay publishes this guide and was not included in the nine-provider comparison. This comparison is based on desk research of official provider materials; HaiPay did not conduct equivalent live-account or transaction testing across all nine providers. HaiPay has no paid sponsorship, affiliate arrangement, or other commercial relationship with the compared providers that influenced their inclusion or treatment in this guide. This content is for general information only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, tax, regulatory, compliance, or pricing advice. Confirm eligibility, features, pricing, settlement, and compliance requirements with the relevant provider and your professional advisers.

Sources

All pages were first accessed on August 6, 2026. Volatile provider facts and prices were revalidated against the official pages on August 10, 2026. Source and internal-link availability was also rechecked on August 10; no unpublished HaiPay Guide URL is embedded in the article body.

1. Adyen — Pricing
2. Adyen — Supported payout currencies
3. Adyen — Payment methods
4. Airwallex — Payment methods overview
5. Airwallex — Supported currencies
6. Airwallex — Payment fees and pricing models
7. Braintree — Currencies
8. Braintree — Payment method types
9. Checkout.com — Pricing
10. Checkout.com — Payment methods
11. Checkout.com — FX fees
12. Checkout.com — Settlement payout timing factors
13. ConnectPay — Pricing
14. ConnectPay — Support and country availability
15. ConnectPay — Providers, payment methods, and currencies
16. PayPal US — Merchant and business fees
17. PayPal Developer — Payment methods
18. Stripe — Global availability
19. Stripe — Supported currencies
20. Stripe — Local payment method pricing
21. Stripe — Refunds
22. Tazapay — Pricing
23. Tazapay — Supported collection and settlement currencies
24. Tazapay — Settlement cycle
25. Tazapay — Payment methods
26. Worldpay — Online payment processing
27. Worldpay — Supported country and currency codes
28. Worldpay — Supported payment methods
29. Worldpay — Manage payments and refunds
30. PCI Security Standards Council — SAQ A ecommerce responsibilities
31. EMVCo — EMV 3-D Secure
32. European Commission — PSD2 strong customer authentication
33. GCash — Merchant product activation
34. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas — QR Ph
35. Grab Philippines — Merchant payment solutions
36. Bank of Thailand — Digital payment system and PromptPay
37. TrueMoney — Merchant wallet
38. Association of Banks in Singapore — PayNow
39. National Payments Corporation of India — About UPI
40. HaiPay — Pricing
41. HaiPay — Local payment methods
42. HaiPay — Local acquiring versus cross-border acquiring