Braintree here. Gave the same response below in the thread,but wanted to make sure to address here as well. You all are right. Getting a merchant account and setting up a foreign currency account has been notoriously difficult to get in the past with extremely high fees and approval requirements. This is no longer the case. Braintree sponsors merchants to get setup with a merchant account in Australia and has built an accelerated process to creating foreign currency accounts.

If a provider states that no merchant account is required, you are most likely being placed on an aggregated merchant account. This has many disadvantages for the merchant as you are grouped under one umbrella account. As the provider grows, this becomes unsustainable and often leads to poor customer experiences (a la Paypal account freezes).

We're working to create a sustainable solution where customer service and great software are the central focus. We'll be constantly improving the on-boarding timeline and look forward to helping the fast growing tech scene in Australia. Always happy to answer any questions about anything payments or e-commerce related, just let us know!

Merchant accounts are a huge PITA.

You have to pay a bunch of money up front and then, if you're not a fish-and-chip shop or similar, you'll probably be told "no".

Plus, each bank will ask if you've ever been knocked back somewhere else. If you honestly answer that you have, guess how that affects your chances?

I started the process of getting a merchant account with NAB and quickly gave up. They had a long check list of requirements that had to be completed before the application was submitted. This included have the signup and subscription processes fully working so they could test them.

Pin is very needed here.