How to pay your non-Western users? [closed]

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I have a question similar to this one, only that my question is focused on "non-Western" users (with this I refer to users outside of Western Europe and the US).

I have to pay users of my website (for services rendered for instance), and they are located at places where banking systems are poor to say the least. They do have ATMs, and credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc) work in most of these countries.

After many hours of browsing the web looking into this, I figure my best bet is to go with Prepaid Debit Cards. They allow me to deposit onto the cards, and my users to simply withdraw or pay for things using that card. In fact, several of those services were mentioned in the post I linked before. These were mentioned:

• Payoneer: on paper their service looks good, but I have not yet received any reply to several inquiries made, their registration form is buggy, and their 'news' section mostly has news from 2008. All red flags to me.

• iKobo: another provider named in the other topic and at Wikipedia (for what it's worth...). However, their SSL certificate is expired. Big red flag.

I've gone over most of the cards mentioned at this review site, but they all appear to be tailored to the US.

So my question is: does anybody know a good payment solution (could be Prepaid Debit Cards, could be something else) that is suitable for paying a wide audience of international users?

NOTE: these are mostly larger payments in the range of $100-500.

Answer 1

In the UK there are two providers: Caxton (Visa) and Fairfx (Mastercard). Their cards are called currency cards rather than prepaid debit cards, but I believe they are exactly what you are describing. Both are fully registered under UK financial law, so are reputable and reliable. Both are usable in a very wide range of countries. They are both usable in many, though not all ATMs (for instance in Thailand, they are usable in ATMs in local supermarkets, but not in local money changing kiosks). In addition to the problems @hol mentions about ATMs, in Asia in particular, local banks can, and do, choose to stop receiving payments from one of the two major networks - usually Mastercard - if there has been a high level of fraud on that network in that particular country.

I believe Caxton also offer a variety of money transfer options at low cost, but I have not used these services.

I have used both providers in travelling round 11 countries this year, mostly in the developing world, including Laos which has the least developed financial system of all the countries visited. They have provided a reliable and useful service. I have no other connection with either provider.

Answer 2

Whatever method you choose, you should be very careful not to fall over laws against money laundring. I am not sure sending around prepaid debit cards is legal.

Answer 3

My own instant idea was bankwire or paypal (or Skrill - moneybookers). Western union I remember as expensive but I might be wrong.

Working in international payments for banks in my professional career I know how money moves around the world and I must say the pre-paid debit card idea is a not too bad an idea and actually quite innovative. I looked at the payoneer thing and I think it looks OK.

I wonder if there are hidden costs but does not look like it. The only costs not visible is for sure the extra charge from the ATM provider in the foreign country charges in addition to the pre-paid debit card provider.

One thing came to my mind: Make sure the receiver can use the card at ATM's in his country. Nowadays almost all cards can receive money at any ATM in the whole world but I would not take it for granted. In worst case the payee has to go to a big airport where ATM machines are more internationalized. Ask the payee what symbols/names his nearest ATM shows. Then ask the hotline if the card can receive money at that ATM. E.g. is EFTPOS supported etc.

On bankwire it depends on the receiving country and some countries tend to do a rip off in charges. I guess you are in the US. I do not know if banks provide the service but UBS Switzerland has a "guaranteed OUR charge" that allows you to make bankwires anywhere in the world where the receiver pays nothing and you are charged a max of 20 CHF plus the regular bankwire charge (I think around 15 CHF to foreign countries). Foreign bankwires from the US also seem to be ridiculously expensive. I just looked up what Bank of America charges. OMG.

Bankwire I would discourage for some countries. I had some bad experience with a certain country once and maybe times changed. Check with the payee first and rather make a test with a smaller amount if it is a rather to corruption tending country. They may think this is money against something exported and want papers and all that before releasing the money...

Of course you still can go back to cash or cheques which have the problem to be very slow and get lost in the mail (but your cards also need to be mailed) and cheques in international traffic tend to have big charges and cash has poor exchange rates.

At last, you should really ask the payees for suggestions, too.

Answer 4

Couldn't you ask some of your users, or people in the countries that are in similar circumstances?

And Western Union Money Transfer is widely known for being able to pay people in a lot of countries.

Answer 5

I would use paypal or, if they accept it, bitcoin.

Answer 6

Skrill (formerly MoneyBookers) may also be an option as they provide an accompanying MasterCard pre-paid card. https://www.moneybookers.com/