Having a diverse client from multiple countries means that you will need more than just a Bank Transfer (wire transfer) option to receive money Internationally.
I will try to compare several methods that I use to receive USD and highlight the pro and the con for each one (Keep in mind that I live in Indonesia).
- Paypal
PRO :
One of the most popular method and the longest player in this industry, it was versatile and the process is quick.
To receive payment, you only need to link your Bank Account, and to make a payment you need to link your Credit Card (it costs a temporary 1 USD into your credit card that will be refunded later). I have been using Paypal for several years to receive International payments. Receiving money into your Paypal account is instant, after that to cash out you need to make withdrawal request, usually it will arrive in my Bank Account in approximately 24 hours.CON:
Depending on the sender, you might not receive the full amount (you actually did receive the full amount before, but it has changed), so for example you got incoming payment of 100 USD but, Paypal will take handling charge fee. I don’t intend to put the Formula for that since it might be subject to change anyway in the future.
The Conversion rate is very poor. Yes Paypal doesn’t charge any withdrawal process above certain amount, however they will give you a very bad conversion rate currency (one of the worst currency rate I ever experienced). - Payoneer
PRO:
Fast execution (similar with Paypal). Withdraw or cash out request generally took around 24 hours.CON:
They will take flat 15 USD for each cash out request if you decided to receive the money in your USD Bank Account, on top of that, additional Bank charge (random but mostly between 20-25 USD) will also occur. I mostly send the USD from Payoneer to my USD Account in my local Bank. So if you cash-out 100 USD, you will only get around 60 USD after all the charge above.
Specific for my case only: my Payoneer account was set by the Language Service Provider that I joined, and I could not even change the cash-out setting, it was set for automatic cash-out each time Payoneer receive the payment from my LSP (Language Service Provider) agency. A little bit unflexible. - TransferWise (changed name to Wise recently)
PRO:
Based on the paper this will be the best method because the conversion rate is the best in the industry, but unfortunately my experience with Wise was not good (see at Con below).CON:
In order to receive any payment in USD, you have to first open and activate your USD Account Balance. During the time this article is written, in order to activate your USD Account you have to at least send 20 USD / 20 EUR / 390,000 IDR to Wise Bank Account in Estonia.
So I did make the transfer payment for 22.36 EUR (the amount 22.36 EUR was calculated automatically by the system after they include the fee etc).
I made the payment through my local bank (which is DBS Indonesia). But apparently due to unknown reason it was rejected and the money got back to my DBS account after more than 1 week. However during those 1 week, either DBS or Wise can’t trace the status of the money. According to DBS the transfer was done successfully without any rejection, however according to Wise no payment received or whatsoever. So the money that got rejected was in the limbo status for 1 week where nobody could even know what happened to it and I actually thought that they lost my money.
Up until now either DBS or Wise couldn’t tell me what went wrong and why it got rejected. I already check the number, bank details etc and it was correct. So I gave up my intention using the Wise services. - Bank Transfer / Wire Transfer to your local Bank
Pro: One of the most legit way. Very safe.Con: So so conversion rate if your account is not in USD. If your account is in USD, the Bank charge to receive payment is quite high.