Modernising payment flows for NCBAL business customers

Start from the statement, not the API

The first question every prospective client asks is whether we can "plug into the bank". It is the wrong first question. A domestic Caribbean bank may or may not publish a developer API, and building your business on the assumption that it does, or that it will keep doing so, is how a shop ends up rebuilding its checkout twice.

We start at the other end: the bank statement is a contract that does not change. Every rail that can put money in your account can be made to leave a reference on it. Design the reference first, make every channel carry it, and reconciliation becomes a join instead of a person with a highlighter.

The four channels, and what each one costs you

An Anguillian merchant typically takes money four ways: card online, card or cash in person, bank transfer, and increasingly a relative abroad paying on behalf of somebody here. Those have very different costs and very different settlement times, and a checkout that hides the difference is a checkout that quietly loses margin.

We build the fee arithmetic into the order itself, in minor units with a currency attached, never a float. Anguilla is an EC dollar economy and the EC dollar is pegged at EC$2.70 to US$1.00, so a shop selling to visitors is holding two currencies whether it means to or not. A price that was converted once at page render and never again is a price that is wrong by settlement.

What we actually build

A merchant back office that owns its own order ledger; a reference scheme that survives every channel; an import that reads the statement export and matches it; and an exceptions queue for the handful that do not match, because there are always a handful. Where the bank does publish an interface we use it, and the system is built so that it does not need one.

The test we hold it to is simple: if the bank changed every one of its systems tomorrow, the business would still know who paid it, for what, and whether the money arrived.

Common questions

Do you have a direct integration with NCBAL?

No, and no guide that says otherwise about any Caribbean bank should be trusted without seeing the contract. We build systems that reconcile against what the bank already gives you: statements, exports and whatever interfaces it publishes to its own customers.

Can you take card payments for an Anguilla business?

Yes, through an acquirer or payment service provider that the business holds the relationship with. Fete Labs writes the software; the merchant holds the merchant account. We are not a payment processor, we do not touch settlement funds, and we are not licensed to.

What currency should an Anguilla checkout price in?

Usually EC dollars for residents and US dollars for visitors, with both stored as integer minor units and a currency code. The EC dollar is pegged at 2.70 to the US dollar, which makes the conversion stable — it does not make it optional.