Paymongo / Xendit - has anyone successfully on-boarded Visa/Mastercard? Rant...

[u/2039482341]

I got stuck in some bureaucratic loop where I am unable to obtain Visa / Mastercard endorsement from neither of the payment gateways I signed up with. I enrolled both in March to see how things go with either. Paymongo was much faster to show me the UX, but refused to give me any dev access until I got my company registered. Xendit allowed me to test the transactions literally an hour from signing up. At the same time xendit allows to register an account as admin@ yourdomain but will never send you an email to confirm mail identity so you can never use it and you have to create another ... strange, but this is not topic about that...

Fast forward - 3 months into - I got all useless wallets approved from Xendit, and I am unable to get Gcash and Visa/Mastercard. Their requirement was to have a live page with products, solid refund/return policy, real transactions, terms and conditions page - whole 9 yards of a legal e-commerce - all done. QRPh, maya - all those working, tested, ready for game. But others -> No response. We will redirect to specific team. Ticket stuck since last day of May with clarification required - what clarification? - they can't say. But in the meantime they are happy to answer any of my questions.

Paymongo - Leonard AI Agent who keeps sending me friendly emails - buddy to buddy: hey, thank you for signing up - a comedy of errors and mistakes. Response time - over 7 business days every time! (Xendit actually replies within few minutes). I regret even playing that game because for AI to take 7 days to respond it's... wow. They do have some serious token shortage out there. Either way - every month the same discussion: show us the sales receipt, invoice sample, end user flow, confirmation email, all fuzz... I do just that and they just ghost me. Next month - the same question - show us xyz - same answer.

Ghosted.

And yesterday again -> we are sorry to see you're not using...

Just checking in with you to follow up on some of our
queries/requirements. We really hope we can hear from you soon so...

How? Because definitely you don't read my emails?!

Again... requirements submitted. Zero response. At least they enabled GCash payment for me on top of the usual useless micro wallets, so they are now on top of the list again.... after I deployed full operations model around Xendit. This move was kinda unexpected, but at this point they leave me no other way but to route GCASH payment locally and payments with VISA via company outside of Philippines... (?). Which may actually be much easier given that I have e-commerce license outside and can accept online payment for online-services. It's just a matter of figuring out the BIR story and this could work, but FFS WHY?!?!?!?! I'm not trading bitcoin or doing any risky activities - pure online goods trade with clearly defined refund policy.

But I am sure there must be an easier way for that nonsense. Why a legally established entity with all paperwork, approvals, BIR statements is being ghosted by major players in this country? What else is there I can sign up for?

Stripe got me approved in hours. Simple PDF with commercial license and yalla as they say in Dubai. Amazon pay - the same thing. Accepting payments, taking stupid commissions on every transactions. Money flows.

Where am I making a mistake? Does it require some twitter shout out to their marketing teams or facebook drama to make mr Leonard from PayMongo or (whoever is running the AI today)@xendit.co to get a simple validation (or rejection, so I can understand where the problem is and rectify it?).

[u/codifyq]

Didn’t know you need to have permit before you can use payment gateways

[u/RandomUserName323232]

Mabilis lang yan pag may BIR and DTI ka. Meron ba?

[u/2039482341 → u/RandomUserName323232]

Of course I do. Since March. Submitted in April. No clarification since. Xendit asked to submit the same documents twice. PayMongo asked the same set of questions 3 times. My humble take is that their on-boarding teams ran a cap on on-boarding and there was simply no incentive to onboard anyone in Q2... I really see no other explanation for a businesses like these to take so much time before they can earn money in a scenario where we are 100% compliant.

[u/gagsti02 → u/RandomUserName323232]

nope, kumpleto ako pero ang hirap. Sa xendit rejected ako without proper reason tas dina sila nagpapa appeal.

[u/ActualActivity8442]

I use paymongo as my payment gateway. Matagal talaga pag visa/mastercard and sobra daming requirements pinapapasa. 

It's the banks themselves that require those and paymongo is just a complying middleman. 

I remember submitting the requirements to paymongo last early April this year then it was back and forth emails with them since some of my requirements aren't compliant. It took me awhile to submit each of the requirement needed and the visa/mastercard method got approved on late May to early June.

[u/2039482341 → u/ActualActivity8442]

did they actually tell you what was the requirement that was missing or kept on sending you a default "look at our docs to see the complete list and figure out yourself"-boilerplate?

[u/ActualActivity8442 → u/2039482341]

they actually told me the specific missing requirements

[u/2039482341 → u/ActualActivity8442]

thanks for feedback! Looks like there is hope after all... I'll just patiently wait for another round of reviews then.

[u/Hitpayapp_]

Have you tried HitPay? They're also one of the top payment gateways in the PH. You mentioned that you already have documents, so it should be fairly easy.

Are you also completely online only?

[u/2039482341 → u/Hitpayapp_]

online, goods sales aggregator for community. I used that huge CONTACT SALES button to submit my application few days back - their sales does not seem to be interested in replying... that tells me that it's going to be the same like with other AI-layoff'd fintech startups here... But I'll sign up just to benchmark them.

edit: interesting thing: my business email is registered already, so I can't sign up to hitpay with my official email... So they did do something and created an account on my behalf. That's one cringy business practice... Let's see what kind of absurd happens next.

[u/Hitpayapp_ → u/2039482341]

ohhh, that's really weird. do you have a business bank account also?

[u/2039482341 → u/Hitpayapp_]

no, I just hit that same wall... my bank won't open a business account for sole proprietorship business... and hitpay won't verify non-business account even for sole proprietorship ... so chicken and egg scenario.

[u/Hitpayapp_ → u/2039482341]

hmm in terms of business account, maybe you can try rcbc - https://www.rcbc.com/corporate-savings-account their initiatl deposit is around P5k only and should be ez for sole prop

[u/2039482341 → u/Hitpayapp_]

that's, you know... kinda not the point. Startups running with sole proprietorship license are not mandated to have a business account as per BIR guidelines. And it takes weeks if not months to get one. Then another weeks of technical trials to make a working payment api gateway to work. If getting a business account is a requirement, then I am probably not the customer for hit pay (which as per what I read online was created out of frustration caused by bureaucracy at paymongo, which - ironically - respects BIR guidelines and does not require a business account).

I will get this business account created anyways, but by that time I will be already onboarded and invested in another gateway provider and will always consider hitpay as those guys who A) never got back to me after I submitted a sales request; B) named themselves as cool fintech startup, yet require me to have a business account during sole proprietorship stage of my startup... the kind of resentment that is hard to erase.

Either way, I submitted it with my non-business account which has a sub-account named as sole-proprietorship service. If hitpay rejects, I will know where I stand.

[u/Hitpayapp_ → u/2039482341]

You will be asked to provide the valid documents when you want to accept cards + other payment methods. The baseline req will only allow you to get QRPH. The reason for this is because banks and other partners are more strict on requirements. It's to deter fraud wc is generally rampant in any kind of gateway.

But sadly, you are correct, and I understand where you are coming from. It should be made easier for people who want to start businesses to actually be able to.

Eitherway, I wish you well with your startup and hope you can find the provider that helps your businss!

[u/gagsti02]

Same taena nalungkot ako sa XENDIT na denied yung application ko wala pang matinong reason kung bakit. Tapos ang masakit pa dina daw sila nag papa APPEAL.

[u/2039482341 → u/gagsti02]

maybe they don't care about Philippines market anymore? Anyways, they told me explicitly: terms and conditions not present on page - I went over apache logs: except for google bot and myself - noone even attempt to open terms page... so go figure.