Payoneer money sending restrictions

Payoneer money sending restrictions
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UPDATE May 18th, 2010 from Payoneer:

1) Payoneer has indeed comfirmed they have come up with a solution for the 6 countries listed below and is doing so with newly issued cards! More details to be forthcoming from an official announcement from Payoneer.
2) If you did not get an email for the new card, contact Payoneer support at http://www.payoneer.com/contactUs.aspx.

More information from Payoneer's rep:
"I am working on an official announcement. I don’t have it ready yet, but here is what happens with these users (Pakistan and the other countries listed):

• Current (Metabank) cards will work regularly for these users until may 31st.
• After May 31st these card will not work for transactions in those countries...only outside of the countries. [all meta cards will be closed by July 15th and will be replaced by the choice cards]
• We will completely support these users with the new Choice bank cards for all transactions in country and out of country.
• We will run an enhanced KYC for users from Pakistan (and these other countries), and will require a scanned copy of ID. After a user completes card sign up, an email will be sent to him requesting an ID. We will not delay the approval, but will make sure this piece is collected.
• Since this process involves costs from our end, might be that an additional fee will apply, but this is not final yet so more information will be provided in the announcement."

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ORIGINAL POSTING

Payoneer is one of the 3rd party money transfer providers used by the site. They have notified us (as well as all Payoneer users effected) that the United States government (specifically the U.S. Treasury - Office of Foreign Assets Control) will be prohibiting them from sending payments to cards in the following countries, which were listed as having anti-money laundering jurisdictional issues:

• Angola (AO)
• Ecuador (EC)
• Ethiopia (ET)
• Pakistan (PK)
• Turkmenistan (TM)
• São Tomé and Príncipe (ST)

If you are in one of these countries:

1) Until May 31st your card will function like normal.
2) After May 31st, you will not be able to withdraw from your current card in the above countries. (However it will still be able to receieve payouts and private payments into your Payoneer Account. You will also still be able to make online purchases with intl. websites that are not in the countries above. And you can also use it outside of the above countries in any place that accepts Mastercard).

So we advise you to:
a) Withdraw/spend your money right away if you don't want it to be restricted per the above.
b) Consider changing your payment option on the site to avoid the above restrictions.


Other options
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For people on the affected countries we are:
1) offering two new options (wire tranfer and intl priority mail) and a discount on an existing option (western union)
2) investigating other methods of payment (such as Moneybookers)


Details on other options
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a) New ability to receive wire transfers. The site fee is $10 and the wire transfer fee is $45. This will be available next week, and when it is, go to your payment options and choose "wire transfer". We will also be adding wire transfer support to Serbia (because WU no longer pays to that country).

b) New ability to receive Intl Priority mail: Similar to Snail Mail Check, but sent via International Priority Mail which is signed for and is more reliable in places (such as the non-major cities) where the normal postal system is not necessarily as dependable.

$10 RAC processing fee + $28 Priority Mail fee charged by carrier = $38 total.

Please note that before choosing this to make sure that your bank will not charge an additional fee for this.


c) Offering a discount on the Western Union fee to help out the people in the 6 countries above. (This will be available next week automatically for all WU payments to the above countries. Please note: the normal rate will still apply to all other countries.) Currently the fee structure is: $10 + the following:

amount fee
------ ---

<= 123 $15
<= 230 $22
<= 334 $29
<= 444 $34
<= 551 $43
<= 682 $50
<= 813 $56
<= 945 $62
<= 1084 $68
<= 1343 $83
<= 1594 $92
<= 5000 $100
Others $125

The new discounted fee structure (for the above 6 countries only) will be $10 + the following:

amount fee
------ ---
<= 123 $15
<= 444 $22
<= 813 $29
<= 945 $34
<= 1343 $43
<= 2000 $50
<= 5000 $52
<= 7000 $62
<= 10000 $68


c) Investigating the use of alternate payment methods. We have talked with Payoneer to see if another issuing bank can get around this regulatory issue, but it will not work. However, per a recent update, Payoneer may have another solution (see the P.S. section below).


We are also looking closer at moneybookers and I've written to their CEO to see if I can get answers to the following questions:

c1) We need a guarantee from them that they will not have this same regulatory issue with the E.U. government and will be able to legally send money to the above countries. We don't want to invest the considerable time and money in creating an integration system and reconcilation system and then have them have them end up not being able to send payments due to the same issue.

c2) Lack of contact: we need a human being that we can contact when we have problems sending money to someone or they say they haven't received it. Leaving a message on a 1-800 # and hoping someone will eventually call back, is not acceptable when dealing with large amount of money.

I will keep you updated on what Moneybookers says.


Ian Ippolito

P.S. Update from Payoneer on April 5th 2010 at 5:21pm
"Tomer from Payoneer here. As of June 1, 2010 Payoneer was required by US regulators to stop transactions to Pakistan. We fully understand the problem this will cause to our cardholders and we are trying to find a solution. The solution might include additional verification checks to demonstrate to regulators that Pakistanis cardholders can indeed use Payoneer cards. We will update you as soon as possible. Please know that we, at Payoneer, are doing all we can to find a solution. Thanks --Tomer"

P.S.S. Update on April 10th, 2010 at 5:01pm:
Moneybookers CEO never replied, but I received a form email instead saying that they no longer support payments from the United States. Per the email:

"Dear Mr. Ippolito,

Thank you for your email and your interest in Moneybookers. Please accept our apologies for our belated reply.

With regards to your enquiry we would like to kindly advise you, that Moneybookers Services for sending funds is currently not available for residents of USA.

We are improving our products and services for the US market and we will notify you once the service is fully available.

Please accept our apologies for the inconveniences if there were any. We appreciate your understanding.

Kind regards,
Moneybookers Merchant Services"