In today’s post, I will list some of the best PayPal alternatives for digital nomads to send and receive money everywhere
If you are a digital nomad, or even just work remotely, you probably know how important it is to receive your funds smoothly. In this post I will list the best PayPal alternatives and when you should consider using them.
Why Digital Nomads Use PayPal
PayPal was founded in 1998, and through the years it reached an important position among online payment processors. Many freelancers, digital nomads, online retailers and ecommerce websites use PayPal to get payments instantly in domestic and international transactions.
But there are good alternatives gaining space on the market with appealing fees and versatile solutions, especially for costumers outside the US.
While PayPal is widely accepted and an extremely fast and reliable way to earn money, its products and service availability vary from country to country, so your country of residence counts a lot when it comes to PayPal use.
3 PayPal Alternatives for Digital Nomads
Payoneer is one of the fastest payment processors for digital nomads and everyone working online. It is based in the US but it has a slightly different approach then PayPal to reach customers worlwide. While PayPal has a debit card, it is only available for customers from selected countires, but with Payoneer you can get your card delivered to your house in most countries.
This is especially good for users from countries where PayPal does’t offer a solution to withdrawal funds such as users from Montenegro, Paraguay, Bolivia, Pakistan and others.
The only downside of Payoneer is that for now it’s not as accepted as PayPal as a form of receiving money, and when it comes to sending money it’s always the clients who decide which form of payment they want to use.
Skrill has been around for a while and used to be known as Moneybookers. They also offer a card and pretty much the same services as Payoneer.
Skrill is quite popular on freelancing websites, and is also a reliable payment processor if you sell something on your website. I have personally used Skrill in many occasions and the transactions were fairly smooth.
Just like Skrill and Payoneer, Payza also has a card, which is quite convenient. However the card is at the moment only for US and European users mostly (and also Pakistan).
What is interesting about Payza is that it lets you deposit and withdraw funds to Bitcoin, but this option is only available for some countries.
Even if Google Wallet has just announce that they are not going to be supporting their own card anymore, it is a widely popular form of sending and receiving payments online. They are currently focusing on NFC payments.
I think Western Union is a great option for emergencies, but it also lets you send money to almost anywhere in normal situations. If you lost all of your cards, you can still receive money in any location producing an identity document and going to one of their receiving locations – which exist pretty much everywhere.