Payoneer connects companies with professionals all around the world, offering international solutions for sending and receiving money.  While the many services we offer are geared towards making your payments simple and efficient, working internationally and with foreign currencies is always tricky.  Here are a few tips that can help you save some extra cash!

Best practices when using your Payoneer card

• Purchases: The main thing you need to keep in mind when using your Payoneer card is that your account is held in either USD or EUR, regardless of what country you live in.  That means that if you are not spending in USD or EUR, each time you use your Payoneer card, funds are converted to your local currency.

The Payoneer card is a prepaid Mastercard® and as such, currency conversions are made using Mastercard’s official exchange rates.  If you’re making large transactions or withdrawals and want to get an estimate of what the current exchange rates are at the time of your transaction, Mastercard® offers an excellent online tool for that.

• Foreign Currency Transactions: If you’re anything like me when it comes to spending money, you will always check your transaction history and compare it to purchase amounts. I know I can be extremely OCD when it comes to the details of my bank and credit/debit card history, so it’s important you realize that the Payoneer card, just like any other Mastercard, is subject to currency conversion charges. While Payoneer itself does not charge you for point-of-sale purchases, Mastercard® and our issuing bank may charge up to 3% on foreign currency or “cross border” transactions (transactions made outside the country of our issuing bank). When making purchases, balancing your books or tracking your transactions, it’s important you keep this in mind.

Cash Withdrawals via ATM: Unlike point-of-sale purchases, cash withdrawals made at ATMs outside the US often use the bank’s conversion rates.  While Mastercard® has competitive conversion rates that are amongst the best available, many international banks will not offer the same conversion rates.  If your local bank has poor conversion rates, you may be better off withdrawing in USD and converting the funds at another location. Check here for a list of compatible ATMs near you.

Receiving funds from Payoneer Partners

You can connect immediately with over 2500 companies who choose Payoneer as a way to pay their users.  Payoneer users worldwide can receive payments from marketplaces/ companies around the world (Upwork, Fiverr, ClickBank, 99Designs, PeoplePerHour, and more!!) directly to their bank account.  So, no matter where you are in the world, you can access our partners to scale your business and immediately receive payment to your local bank account.

About 10 days ago, we let you know that we were about to open up our Global Bank Transfer Service to the world. That time, ladies and gentlemen, has come.

As of today, we have added 13 more countries for local transfers.

All of these countries will now be receiving local bank transfers. These are in addition to the countries that we listed in our last post about the Global Bank Transfer Service. Please read that post for directions on how to join this service.

We also added 168 other countries that will be receiving their funds via wire transfer, which is an international bank transfer, so you may have a bit of a higher fee than the local bank transfers.

Please note that while Payoneer only charges the flat fee of $5.95 or $9.95 depending on your country, your local bank may also charge you a fee.

The following countries can now receive local bank transfers:

Sweden – EUR and SEK
Singapore – SGD
Japan – JPY
Turkey – TRY
Thailand – THB
Malta – EUR
Finland – EUR
Austria – EUR
Lithuania – EUR and LTL
New Zealand – NZD
United Arab Emirates – AED
Brazil – BRL

What do you think about this new service? What other services would you like Payoneer to implement? Let us know in the comments.

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UPDATE: Please scroll down for the update

Hi everyone!

Several months ago, we beta-launched a new service where, instead of receiving payments to their Mastercard cards, our payees could receive their payments directly to their bank accounts.

We are very happy to say that this new service is going really well and is now open in 30 countries worldwide (listed below)! Additionally, within the next couple of weeks, we will be opening this service to the rest of the world.

The Global Bank Transfer Service costs either $5.95 or $9.95 depending on the country you live in. It is currently available for several of our partners, but new partners are adding this service every week, and hopefully everyone will soon.

If you are signing up for a new Payoneer account, when you choose Payoneer as your payment option, you will see two choices:

1) Sign up for the Payoneer Mastercard

2) Sign up for Payoneer’s Global Bank Transfer Service

Just choose your country from the the bank transfer drop down list, click continue, enter the information requested, and you’re done! Payments are sent via US direct deposit, local bank transfer, or wire transfer (depending on your country).

You can view a full list of the countries currently open for our Global Bank Transfer Service by clicking here.

What do you think about this new service? What other services would you like Payoneer to implement? Let us know in the comments.

UPDATE: Please note that while Payoneer only charges the flat fee of $5.95 or $9.95 depending on your country, your local bank may also charge you a fee.

Have you liked us on Facebook yet? Are you following us on Twitter and Google+? Join us on the Payoneer Community Forums and on LinkedIn!