FX Optimizer

FX Optimizer is a financial service which allows businesses to price goods and services in a variety of foreign currencies, while continuing to receive settlement and reporting in merchant’s default currency. FX Optimizer allows cardholders to shop, view prices and pay in the currency of their choice.

availability

FX Optimizer for Braintree is currently in a limited release and is only available for eligible merchants in the EU.

Contact our sales team to request access to the release.

How it works

1. The merchant makes a SDK or GraphQL call to generate the exchangeRateQuoteId for the requested currency pairs (e.g., EUR to USD)

2. The exchangeRateQuoteId returns exchange rates used to list prices on the merchant's website in the buyer’s local currency, which can be determined automatically if your website is set up to detect buyers' locations, or by providing buyers options to select their own currency

note

The exchange rates returned will include the Braintree FX fee agreed to during your Braintree contract set up, as well as any FX markup that your site adds during the GraphQL call. You can store the exchangeRateQuoteId field once received until the rate's expiry period. Once the rate reaches the expiry period, you will need to send the GraphQL call again to generate the most up-to-date exchange rates.

3. Once the buyer from a different country, such as someone from the EU visiting a merchant's US website, checks out and submits the payment to place the order, the transaction details are sent to the Braintree SDK for processing along with the exchangeRateQuoteId. This identifier makes sure that the exchange rate used for displaying prices in their local currency is honored at the time of settlement in the merchant account

4. Braintree processes the payment upon receiving the transaction details, including going through checks to approve or decline the transaction. During this time, the Braintree gateway's transaction status will be in the settling state. If approved, the buyer’s card is then charged in their local currency for the amount displayed to them when the transaction was submitted

5. Braintree then converts the funds from the buyer's local currency to the merchant's business currency (for example, EUR to USD) using the same exchange rate that was obtained in the exchangeRateQuoteId result, and includes the Braintree transaction and FX fees. The final amount will be disbursed to the merchant account in their default currency

6. The Braintree gateway transaction status will change from a settling to settled status

Availability

You must be an approved merchant with an FX Optimizer contract to use this integration. The contract includes important pricing details in addition to other parameters such as when the FX Optimizer rate expires and the rate refresh time. The Braintree countries in scope of the FX Optimizer product are as follows:

Applicable card types

The requirements for FX Optimizer payment processing apply to the following card types:

• Visa
• Mastercard
• Discover
• American Express

Integration

See our developer docs for more information on how to create a transaction using FX Optimizer.