Over 2 billion users in emerging markets have money and want your product — but your traditional payment checkout requires cards 70% of them will never have. This article is for founders, product managers, and developers who are running into that wall — we’ll show you how crypto acquiring changes the equation.
The internet promised a borderless economy. For information, it delivered. For money, it mostly didn't.
Today a developer in Tbilisi can build a product used by people in São Paulo, Lagos, and Jakarta — but getting paid by those same people still runs through a financial infrastructure built in the 1970s. The result is a paradox: digital products are global by default, but collecting revenue from global customers remains one of the most bureaucratic, expensive, and geography-dependent things a small business has to do. Let’s find out how to fix that.
Key Takeaways
The problem: 70% of potential customers in emerging markets have no international cards. Traditional payment infrastructure blocks them completely.
Real impact: A conversion jump from trial to paying client from 3.5% to 9.9% in India/Brazil/Nigeria after adding crypto payments.
Why it works: In Nigeria (<2% card access), India (5-10%), Indonesia (8-15%), crypto wallets are 3-5x more accessible than international cards. Customers buy crypto without a bank account via local P2P exchanges in minutes.
Technical reality: Volet.com provides clients with 24-hour API integration, 2-day KYB approval, and 0.25% flat fee — versus weeks of integration and legal work combined with 3-5% charges per transaction with traditional card processing.
Bottom line: This isn't about replacing traditional acquiring. It's about reaching customers who literally cannot use it — and crypto acquiring removes that block.
Problem: Traditional Banking Infrastructure Blocks Your Emerging Market Customers
The gap between "your product is global" and "your payment infrastructure is global" remains wide for most small businesses. The traditional acquiring model was built for a world where companies expand sequentially — one country, one entity, one bank account at a time. It doesn’t fit a world where a single developer can build something used by people in 40+ countries.
As a result, for a business trying to reach customers in developing markets, accepting card payments means building a separate legal and financial infrastructure for each region. That means lawyers, a nominal director, a local accountant, and months of setup before you've earned a single real or peso. Then you open a local bank account — another three-plus months of compliance review. Then you integrate a local payment gateway charging 3–5% per transaction, often with a rolling reserve that freezes your funds for weeks.
For a well-funded company with a legal team, this is manageable friction. For a SaaS product with 15% margins or an indie developer going global, the math doesn't work. You're paying for infrastructure before you have a business in that market.
International Card Access by Global Market
30% Full access (US, Canada, EU, Australia, Japan)
60% Limited access (Middle East, China, Southeast Asia, Latin America)
10% Blocked or unavailable (Russia, Central Africa)
Consequence: 70% of Your Potential Clients Has Money But No Way to Pay
You may think that developing markets are like familiar ones, just less advanced. Fewer people have bank accounts, but the ones who do behave like European or American consumers.
That assumption misses something important. In large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, people didn't gradually adopt traditional banking services and card payments then move to digital wallets. They skipped straight to mobile-first financial tools — and increasingly, to crypto — because the card-and-bank-account layer never arrived in the first place.
In Nigeria, credit card penetration is below 2%, and while nearly half the population has a bank account, access to international card networks remains limited. In much of Southeast Asia, the picture is similar. Meanwhile, smartphone and mobile internet penetration in these same countries is high and growing fast. The infrastructure gap isn't between "offline" and "online" — it's between legacy banking rails and everything built after them.
For many residents of Lagos, Nairobi, or Buenos Aires, a bank account was never part of the picture to begin with. Instead, P2P platforms accepting cash or mobile money gave them direct access to digital dollars — no branch visit, no credit history required. This is crypto and financial inclusion at its most concrete: in markets where traditional banking infrastructure failed to scale, blockchain rails quietly became the default.
The business implication is direct: if your checkout accepts only Visa and Mastercard, you are losing a large and growing population that has money, is online, and is ready to pay — just not through the channels you've built for.
Region
International Card Access
Crypto Wallet Potential
USA / Western Europe
75-80%
15-20%
Nigeria
<2%
25-35%
India
5-10%
20-30%
Brazil
20-25%
25-35%
Indonesia
8-15%
20-25%
Solution: Crypto Acquiring as an Upgrade Bank Alternative
Crypto acquiring is the merchant-side infrastructure for accepting cryptocurrency payments. Think of it as a payment gateway — the same role Stripe plays for cards — but operating on blockchain networks instead of card rails.
A customer at checkout selects "pay with crypto." The gateway generates a wallet address, displayed as a QR code or copyable string. The customer opens their wallet app, scans the code (or pastes the address if on desktop), enters the amount, and sends. The gateway monitors the blockchain, matches the transaction to the invoice, and confirms payment — nearly identical to a card payment webhook from your system's perspective.
In practice, nearly all crypto payments in e-commerce happen in stablecoins — USDT and USDC, which are pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. You're not taking on cryptocurrency price risk; you're receiving digital dollars.
This has a significant secondary benefit for FX settlement because the gateway locks the exchange rate at the moment of payment. The merchant invoices in USD, the customer pays in USDT or USDC, and there's no exposure to multi-hop currency conversions or the volatility of emerging market currencies like the Argentine peso or Turkish lira.
Implementation: How to Set Up Crypto Payments with Volet.com
There are two different technical approaches to crypto acquiring, and the right one depends on what your product is and how much operational complexity you want to take on. Most providers specialize in one model or the other. Volet.com handles both, which means you can serve mainstream customers via QR-code checkout while also supporting wallet-connect flows for crypto-native audiences — under a single integration.
Custodial crypto acquiring is the Web2-compatible model. The payment gateway receives funds into its own wallets, then credits your merchant account — either in the original stablecoin or automatically converted to fiat. Payments arrive in USD or EUR to your existing bank account via SEPA or SWIFT — processed like any other gateway settlement. If your accountant doesn't want to touch stablecoins, they don't have to.
This is the right choice for most e-commerce stores, SaaS products, and subscription businesses: it integrates quickly, requires no crypto expertise on your team, and keeps financial operations close to what your accountant already understands.
Non-custodial crypto acquiring is the Web3-native alternative. Instead of manually sending a payment, the customer connects their wallet (MetaMask, Trust Wallet, or similar) and authorizes the transaction via smart contract. Funds move directly to your wallet — the gateway never holds them.
The flow works like this: the customer clicks "Connect Wallet" at checkout. If they're on a desktop, their browser extension (typically MetaMask) prompts for permission. On mobile, the site opens their wallet app directly. Once connected, the customer approves a spending cap — essentially authorizing the merchant to withdraw a specific amount from their wallet. This approval persists until manually revoked. Finally, they confirm the payment with one more signature inside their wallet app.
The UX is improving but still rougher than custodial flows. The tradeoff: no card data entry, no 3DS SMS delays, and no rejections based on card issuer country or legacy banking restrictions.
This makes sense for DeFi applications, NFT marketplaces, and companies seeking for more payment flexibility — receiving USDT from customers and immediately using it to pay cloud hosting bills, freelance developers, or advertising campaigns — without ever touching traditional banking rails. This model works particularly well for b2b cross border payments, where you're paying suppliers or contractors in other countries. If you're running a fully digital business with remote contractors, this eliminates bank transfer fees and delays entirely.
Capabilities: Global Reach, Flexible Settlement, and Crypto Financial Inclusion
No local entity per market. For a custodial gateway with fiat settlement, you'll typically complete a KYB (Know Your Business) verification once, with the gateway provider. That single onboarding covers your access to global payment acceptance — not one registration per country. Even a solo developer can integrate crypto acquiring and start accepting global payments within days.
Access to the unbanked. As described above, hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets have crypto wallets but no international cards. For these customers, crypto isn't a preference — it's the only option. Accepting it converts previously unreachable users into paying customers.
No chargebacks. Blockchain transactions are irreversible by design. Once confirmed, a payment cannot be disputed and reversed. For businesses selling digital goods — where chargeback fraud is a genuine operational problem — this eliminates a meaningful source of revenue loss.
Settlement flexibility. A well-built gateway lets you choose how you receive funds. You can keep balances in stablecoins and use them directly for operational expenses — paying remote contractors, cloud infrastructure, or suppliers who accept USDT/USDC. Or you can convert automatically to fiat and receive euros or dollars in your bank account. Either way, you can operate without maintaining separate legal entities or bank accounts in each market you serve.
Closing Thoughts
Crypto acquiring doesn't solve every problem on a bumpy road of expanding to emerging markets. It won't replace cards for customers who have them and prefer them. But for specific situations — reaching customers in markets with low card penetration, removing the legal overhead of multi-country entity setup, settling revenue across borders without correspondent bank friction — it offers something the traditional system genuinely cannot: a way to operate globally without building a global banking infrastructure first.
Businesses that can support both traditional and crypto acquiring should run them side-by-side. This dual-infrastructure approach is the core philosophy behind Volet.com: it functions as a bridge platform connecting the operational simplicity and mainstream UX of Web2 acquiring services with the regulatory freedom and global accessibility of Web3 crypto payments.
Frequently Asked Questions
It's a strong fit if you have customers in Latin America, Africa, or Asia; and sell digital products or services. It's particularly valuable if your customers can buy crypto without a bank account through local P2P exchanges, making crypto their most accessible payment method.
It's less suitable if you require multi-currency checkout in dozens of local fiat currencies.
Most processors use tiered pricing where low rates only unlock at several million dollars in monthly volume. Volet.com charges a flat fee structure from the first transaction — a small business gets the same rate as a large one.
0.25% — for non-custodial (self-custody) where you receive crypto directly to your own wallet.
0.75% (0.25% acquiring + 0.5% withdrawal) — for custodial with crypto settlement where funds settle to your custodial wallet as stablecoins.
0.75-1.75% (0.25% acquiring + 0.5% conversion + 0-1% bank transfer) — for custodial with fiat settlement, automatic conversion to USD/EUR, and direct deposit to your bank account via SEPA or SWIFT.
For a product operating on tight margins, this is a meaningful difference from day one. This is particularly valuable for b2b cross border payments where traditional wire fees (often $25-50 per transaction) make small invoices uneconomical.
The KYB process is designed for smaller businesses and independent developers, not just enterprises.
For sole proprietors, the process is nearly identical to individual verification and can be completed even in a few hours if documents are ready.
For incorporated businesses, expect 1-2 days depending on the number of beneficial owners — each needs to complete KYC individually. The bottleneck is usually coordination, not document review. If you have multiple stakeholders in different time zones, scheduling everyone to submit verification can take longer than the actual approval process.
For most platforms, plan on one day for integration and another day for testing — about two working days total. If you're using an API integration, expect 50-100 lines of code for a basic implementation — similar complexity to integrating Stripe.
Experienced developers with prior payment gateway integration can move faster — some finish in a few hours — but that's the exception, not the norm. Most teams need time to familiarize themselves with the API, handle edge cases, and properly test the payment flow.
CMS plugins (WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify) install in minutes. Hosted checkout pages require even less technical work.
In practice, most cross-network errors can't happen — wallet apps prevent incompatible transactions at the point of sending. For example, a Tron address won't accept an Ethereum transaction; the wallet simply won't allow it.
The exception: EVM-compatible networks (Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism) share the same address format. A user could accidentally send USDT on Polygon when the gateway expects Ethereum. In these cases, Volet.com can recover the funds and credit them correctly. Recovery isn't instant and may involve manual intervention, but funds are rarely lost.
Regarding FX settlement: the gateway locks rates at payment confirmation regardless of network, so exchange rate risk is eliminated even during recovery.
Treat it as standard business revenue. If you're using fiat auto-conversion, report the USD/EUR amount that hits your bank account — it's no different from card payments. If you hold crypto on your balance sheet, you'll need to account for it as a digital asset, but most small businesses avoid this complexity by converting to fiat immediately. Position crypto acquiring as an upgrade bank alternative that expands your payment options, not as a departure from traditional commerce.
