The Payment Was Successful. But How Much Money Did the Merchant Actually Keep?

When we talk about payment performance, we often focus on authorization rates, failed transactions, payment methods and checkout conversion.

But there’s another question I find particularly interesting.

How much money does a merchant actually receive after a successful payment?

A transaction might be authorized for €100, but that doesn’t mean the merchant will have €100 available in its bank account.

Between the initial payment and the final settlement, there may be processing fees, currency conversions, settlement charges and other costs.

I recently came across an interesting example from the Netherlands.

How YourSurprise saved €50,000 annually

YourSurprise is a Dutch e-commerce company specializing in personalized gifts. The business operates across several European markets and manages collections and supplier payments in more than 15 currencies.

As the company expanded internationally, managing those currencies became increasingly expensive.

Imagine receiving customer payments in British pounds, converting them into euros, and later converting those euros back into pounds to pay a British supplier.

You’ve potentially paid for two currency conversions without any commercial benefit.

YourSurprise faced this broader problem: its domestic bank couldn’t efficiently support all the currencies it needed, and maintaining additional foreign currency accounts was expensive.

The company decided to change its treasury arrangements.

Working with Airwallex, YourSurprise introduced multi-currency accounts that allowed it to collect, hold and pay funds in the same currencies.

This approach is commonly called like-for-like settlement.

Instead of automatically converting every foreign payment into euros, the company could retain foreign currency balances and use them to pay suppliers, shipping companies and tax authorities.

Currency conversions would take place when necessary, rather than automatically.

What were the results?

According to Airwallex’s published customer case study, YourSurprise achieved approximately 0.5% savings on €10 million of annual currency conversions.

That’s an estimated €50,000 saved every year.

The company also reported faster transfers to its local bank account, replacing a one-day delay with immediate availability.

These figures are company-reported estimates published by its provider, rather than independently audited savings.

Nevertheless, the underlying financial mechanism is worth understanding.

What could other merchants learn?

I’d start by examining payment settlement data, not just checkout transactions.

For every market and payment provider, I’d want to understand the original transaction currency, processing fees, settlement currency, FX rate, transfer charges and the amount ultimately received.

I’d also examine how many days it takes before the funds are available.

The next question would be whether the merchant has expenses in the same currencies it receives from customers.

If a company regularly receives pounds and pays British suppliers, does converting that revenue into euros make financial sense?

Sometimes it won’t.

Of course, like-for-like settlement doesn’t eliminate every fee. Some providers still charge foreign-currency settlement fees, so the full cost must be compared.

What I find particularly interesting about YourSurprise is that its reported savings didn’t come from increasing checkout conversion or authorization rates.

They came from examining what happened to the money after customers had already paid.

And that’s an area of payment performance that I think deserves considerably more attention.

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Sources: Airwallex – YourSurprise case study and Airwallex – Foreign currency settlement fees.