Lately few of my blog readers in my Network blog told me that he was unable to join lots of advertising network since their payment method is only Paypal. Reason for some reason either Paypal is not offered to their countries or offered with restriction (To send only, no Receive, or can’t withdrew to local bank). This gave me an itch on my back to explore the situation more in depth. Well some fascinating data came out from my research. About 70% of advertising and referral network use Paypal as single method of payout, and another 16% uses cheques (Checks) as alternate payout method. PayPal is offered in 103 countries but only 35 countries can use Paypal without restriction, i.e. they can send receive and withdrew fund to their local banks. Another 7 countries can send & receive but withdrew either in a US bank account or through US cheques. Seven more countries can send and receive but withdrew only in US bank account, no cheques options for them. So that leaves 54 countries, which users are only eligible to send money through Paypal by using their credit card as funding option.

 

As we know 103 countries is not the whole world and in some countries foreign cheques withdrawal takes even 90 days. For example- One of my reader he is from Nepal, if a US cheque send to him it will take 45 banking days to clear that cheque. Not everyone is professional blogger, who can wait 45-60 days for earning; not to mention a lot of bloggers are student. So a lot of blogger’s options became short or zero even due to this complexity but Papal is most widely used payment options too. Is there any solution? Sure there is, just not straight forward, a little way around.

 

For US Paypal you need a US bank account and a US address. Now there are some debit card companies who offer international debit cards (anybody can apply, though few nationality are restricted), and the reputable ones offer a Virtual US account attached to their debit cards. And thgose virtual accounts are DDA (Direct Debit Account), means they can only accept electronic payment like Paypal, Moneybookers, Amazon, Adsense etc.(you can not use it for other purpose) and vice versa (you can load also from your debit card, which you can fund through wire transfer). Few identification documents will require in order using that DDA account. So now that you have a virtual US account… you need an address. That’s easy as pie, just rent a address from a mail forwarding company (so many of them), but you need fill up some kind USPS forms and send it to the company (Scan copy is accepted). So now those debit cards will cost you around $100-$120, and mail drop address will cost you around $15/month and some lump sum one time setup fees. There you go you have everything you need to have a Paypal account.

 

[tags] paypal, debit cards, DDA, bloggers, payment system[/tags]