New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
What service is best to receive payments from companies and individuals for a freelancer in India?
subjugating
Banned, Member
I have tried Paypal, but it loots almost 9% if you compare with XE.com's values. Like if you get paid 100 EUR, you would only receive like ~91.15 EUR in local bank account after currency conversion.
I have heard about Payoneer.com, it gives us a Virtual Bank account in US/UK/EU/JP etc. I want to know how well does it work? Can any registered company transfer funds to that VBA? Has anyone tried it yet? I know individuals cannot transfer funds to it.
Most of the clients I have are from Sweden or Netherlands.
Monthly amount I get is in between 500-600 EUR a month.
Any help is much appreciated.
Comments
Yes. I have used that service (Payoneer.com) in the past and it works as expected. Make sure you search on Google for "payoneer $25 bonus" which will be deposited to your account
Alternatively, ask your clients to send the funds with TransferWise, CurrencyFair or the like.
There aren't any proper solution though there are complicated ones but since your monthly amount is pretty low for those "solutions" to be feasible.
If I were you, I would wait for a couple of months. Why? because of the recent news:
Looks like PayPal is gonna allow easy cross-border transactions and holding of funds like how it was in 2008
EDIT:
If you're lazy to go and check the links, here's the main thing:
PPI is not yet approved for PayPal (the thing which enables an individual to hold funds in PayPal account) though they are trying real hard for it, as they are trying to bring the entire payments suite
Fingers crossed.
Cant u ask them to remit through wu.com?
I think they can send online payment easily without going to western union office.
Payoneer also worked, but with charges ($1) for every balance enquiry. Not sure their service status in India now. Their support dept is nice.
@klikli Sadly I did not sign up with any such link. But I am glad to hear it works. I hope I get an approval soon. Actually I was going to do with Transferwire.com's borderless account only. But it is not available in India anymore. It was originally though. The companies don't take the pain to send the money using smaller platforms.
@BlaZe Yes I read about it on Quartz too. But I am not sure about the charges yet. The currency conversion is a open loot system. I don't know where they get these rates from. If it was only 4.5% in total, I won't have any issues. But 9 percent is too much.
@Intelpentium0 I think Western Union is not a legit form to accept payments. As we can only remit money from friends and families using it here in India as the website says. I might be completely wrong though. But this is what the website says. I really like this method too. My bank has a slot for it.
4.4% + $0.30 + 2.5% on currency conversion almost comes to 92.9175 ~ $92.9
Oh yeah, they select the best rate (favouring them) for the currency conversion. So yeah it comes down to around say 8% as fees.
As you said, your transaction is worth around 500-600EUR per month then I assume you are losing out approx €54 (@9% txn fee) monthly to PayPal (close to Rs. 4.2k) which is not a big amount if you factor the ease of receiving your money and the effortlessness by your clients.
So, I'd say take the hit. And, when your transaction money goes higher, you can call up PayPal to move you up the bracket.
Last time I checked it was minimum monthly $10k in transaction to move up in the fee reduction bracket. From 4.4% it reduces to 3.9%
The only real solution is to nail our RBI to fucking give the PPI (license) to PayPal!
You forgot GST. https://www.paypal.com/in/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full
So, now, 18% GST on 9% transaction fee
though it can be filed back and will be passed on to the end user.
The new approx transaction fee will be 10.62%
Viabuy.. Costs 90€ to activate but provides full banking and working physical master card.
Did you try SWIFT payments (wire transfer) to accept money from overseas?
@BlaZe @varwww GST won't apply to overseas transactions.
It is only on Paypal fees, if any and not the whole amount. I seriously don't like Paypal any more. And that kind of money matters for an average Indian. Bitcoins should be the defacto payment service now.
I would take a look, does it work in India?
I would but I don't know how to.
go to your bank and ask for swift code and then provide your bank name/account number/swift number to the payer for wire transfer . This way you will save a lot of fees .
Okay, I would ask for SWIFT code, if they provide the same.
IGST might be applicable.
Also, Bitcoins got a red signal from RBI
https://inc42.com/buzz/rbi-reaffirms-hostility-towards-bitcoins-cryptocurrency/
All banks have swift codes but branch people may not know . Like whole HDFC branches in North eastern regions operate through one single swift code of Calcutta branch .
Try Icici or HDFC banks ,they will tell you . I do not expect much from SBI people . But if you get sbi ,it is better or HDFC banks keep asking about what money you are getting each time money is transferred and SBI is too lazy to enquire that . ICICI is fastest to transfer ,you will get within 2-3 days . HDFC can take 2-8 days and SBI is avergae time .
PS : wire is really good as there are least number of intermediate involved and hardly any kind of charge backs possible
once you get used to it , you will not use any other methods .
@BlaZe hmm. It sucks that RBI would say so.
@hostdare Are you from India? Would it be feasible to use Wire Transfer for 500-600 EUR a month? What do you think about Payoneer's VBA (Virtual Bank accounts)? Does it work? What are the total charges in the end with Payoneer if you know.
Yes it is feasible . no idea of payoneer
That's a very important point - ease of payment for your clients ! I use paypal and bank wire transfer for client payments. For me with very large amounts, clients usually ask if bank wire transfer option is available. Just raise your prices you charge clients to cover the extra percentage loss from using paypal. It's called factoring in costs of doing business.