What’s In Your Wallet?
Did you know that the credit card payment solutions industry is a high-cost nightmare for legal cannabis and hemp merchants? No? It’s true. If you were to Google the phrase “high risk payment processor fees” and started to read the articles (though let’s face it, most of the search results are basically ads from high-risk processors themselves), you would notice a startling trend. The fees. The outrageous fees. Set up fees. Maintenance fees. Application fees. Not to mention the fees for the actual payment processing itself. Why so many fees?
The answer simply boils down to the fact that the legal cannabis and hemp industry is seen as high-risk merely for the products they sell. If you look at the overall definition of a high-risk business, products are only one aspect of it. Usually it’s referring to a business with a higher chance of chargebacks, fraudulent charges, or where the owner doesn’t have a really good credit score. So, as a result of getting put in that same category, merchants within the legal cannabis and hemp industry don’t have many options.
“Well how bad can the fees really be?” I’m glad you asked that question. Let me give you some fees taken from some of these websites that showed up in our Google search. According to one of those articles, the rule of thumb for processing fees is 3.95% to 4.95% plus 25 cents per swipe for “qualified rates.” That’s on the lower end. And that’s just for swiping a credit or debit card. There’s also the fees for applying for and maintaining the account. An application fee can be as low as $75 USD and be higher than $200 USD. The maintenance fees per month can exceed $100 USD. Let’s not forget, also, that you’ll most likely get put on a tiered plan, which means you’ll also have PCI compliance fees, early termination fees. Oh so many fees.
This is where KannaCoin steps in. Building a point of sale terminal that is connected to a multi-asset wallet on the blockchain will remove all of that nonsense. Every time a customer makes a purchase, the terminal automatically converts the fiat transaction into an equal crypto asset transaction and sends the crypto asset to the merchant’s pre-determined asset wallet. The terminal will also have a QR code scanner that will allow for seamless digital payments in cryptocurrency without the need for a fiat transfer.
Each merchant will be able to switch between which asset they convert to and which wallet address to send that asset to, from a simple to use app built into the terminal. This app will also act as a full point of sale terminal and track each and every sale and asset conversion and transfer for bookkeeping purposes, include all blockchain transaction information from each respective block explorer. The merchant will be able to choose which information they need for their financial reports with the click of a button.
The point of sale terminals will be sold for a one-time fee, meaning no monthly maintenance fees. Complete and easy to follow set-up instructions will be provided with each terminal in order to create a seamless transition for each merchant. A technical support team will be created specifically for handling issues with the payment terminals should any occur. This small team will be trained on troubleshooting the devices and providing solutions to merchants should they need it.
Providing merchants with a low-cost payment processing solution is a big part of the KannaCoin vision. Many will get denied numerous times before being accepted by a high-risk processor, often times losing the application fees in the process. This solution fixes that problem and provides a better alternative, allowing merchants to save more of their hard-earned revenue. And without the label of “high-risk.”
