Monero is a privacy-centric cryptocurrency that is also an alternative form of payment for goods and services. Over 1,200 merchants worldwide accept Monero and business owners may want to be part of this growing list to serve customers who value privacy.
Accepting XMR will be beneficial for your enterprise because of these benefits:
• Flexibility and convenience for customers-offering many modes of payments to customers will be good for business. It also provides them and their information a layer of protection.
• Widens market reach-with Monero as a payment option, your business can cater to international customers.
• Fewer transaction fees-companies that accept credit card payments have to pay fees for each card swipe on top of the percentage they receive from the purchase amount. Accepting Monero will reduce these costs.
• Merchant protection-fraudulent chargebacks are minimized because of Monero’s decentralized setup. There are no third parties that can reverse charges.
Setting up for Monero as a payment option for your business is straightforward. You simply need a Monero wallet and an address. If you are a Monero owner, create a separate wallet for the business. A dedicated business wallet address for will make it more efficient to manage accounts.
If you are not yet a Monero holder but would like to accept Monero payments, you can create an XMR wallet. XMRWallet is a hot, web-based Monero wallet. It assists you to have faster, easier, and uninterrupted Monero transactions. It is open-source and free. Create an XMRWallet account by going to xmrwallet.com and click on “Create XMR Wallet”. You’ll land on a page where you choose from among 10 languages and where your 25-word seed phrase is. Type in your seed to confirm. Don’t forget to write it down and keep it some place safe. You can have several copies of your seed in different places as backup in case you lose the original. Once you’ve typed in your seed for confirmation, you’re logged in your account and you can immediately start accepting Monero payments.
1) Compute the customer’s total purchase and add the applicable taxes in fiat. Calculate the corresponding amount in XMR.
2) The customer pays by scanning your business wallet’s QR code. You can find the QR code in XMRWallet by clicking on “Receive” on the menu found on the left side of the page. The wallet address is there as well. Printing out the QR code and keeping it near the register will be very convenient for the cashier and clients. Keep a copy of the wallet address as well for those clients who would rather use that.
3) Confirm the transaction by clicking on “Transactions” on the menu. Confirmation takes between 4-12 minutes.
As your enterprise grows, you may need to make check-outs quicker. Monero Integrations can help you make a payment gateway that will improve payment processing. The community has developed plugins, which you connect to the business wallet. There are third-party payment processors as well who can install software and provide technical support.
Online businesses can take similar steps. Publish the business wallet address on your website. Clients will just copy it and send a notification they have paid. Monero Integrations also offer plugin for businesses on an e-commerce platform such as WooCommerce or Shopify. For bigger enterprises with their own websites, third-party payment processors may be more beneficial for businesses. Together with a partner exchange, these processors provide automatic fiat conversion for a fee.
Planning for security measures is just as important as setting up your business for Monero payments properly. Keep the business wallet’s seed phrase safe and don’t share it with just anyone. Make sure that digital payments are stored securely by transferring them to cold storage regularly. Implement multi-factor authentication on business accounts.
As a final note to this article, entrepreneurs who add Monero as a payment option should also be ready to adapt to changes in the law relating to cryptocurrency. Authorities are still creating regulations on how to report profits and pay taxes on crypto transactions. Once these are in place, they may still change, as using crypto in business is still new. The ability to adapt and pivot quickly will do business owners well.
