Business Bank Accounts – Part Two

In this series of posts, I’ll be talking about what I call the “The Creator Financial Toolkit”.

The toolkit is a set of financial products and services that I believe a creator entrepreneur should have. These products and services can be beneficial to creators that operate on an international level and will allow creators to get paid quickly while keeping charges to a minimum.

Currency Standard

With the US dollar being the currency standard for worldwide trading. It is not surprising that companies outside the US make payments in US dollars. While others make payments in euros for creators that live in a country with a currency other than US dollars or euros, this creates a problem. Being paid for your creative services or from platforms you operate on like YouTube, DistroKid, etc. while keeping charges to a minimum.

From here on, creator platforms refers to platforms and services like YouTube, Dribbble, music aggregators like DistroKid, Tunecore, Ad Networks, affiliate programs, etc.

These charges include currency exchange fees of between 0.4 and 0.5 percent of the exchange amount. To exchange US dollars into your home currency will cost you 0.4 to 0.5 percent above the exchange base rate. So exchanging 100 US dollars for British pounds would cost $0.40. Other charges include cross border and the payment service our charges. In all, you could end up paying three different charges before your money actually goes into your bank account.

Keeping charges to a minimum when being paid into your bank account would be anybody’s goal.

Getting Paid

The standard form of payment into your bank account is a wire transfer. However, a wire transfer can also be the form of payment with the highest charges; this is due to your own bank’s and the intermediary bank’s charges. It is also worth noting that many creator platforms outsource payments to platforms like Payoneer.

Getting paid into your bank account and finding the route with the least amount of charges can be challenging.

With most of the creator platforms based in the USA, the natural currency choice for pay-outs is US dollars. For a creator who lives outside of the USA, this can be a problem. Nobody wants to be charged when paying money they earn into their local bank account. Unfortunately, there is often no way of getting around these charges. This is where having a financial toolkit comes in.

Creator Financial Toolkit: Payoneer

Payoneer

As mentioned before, some platforms use payment services like Payoneer to make payments to clients. These platforms include Ezoic, Dailymotion, Fiverr, ShareAsale, and others.

Payoneer offers multiple solutions depending on specific business needs. Payoneer can operate as a global payment service for global businesses needing to make payments to clients around the globe. For the purpose of this post, I will concentrate on Payoneer services that benefit the creator entrepreneur.

Due to the fact that businesses or marketplaces use Payoneer as a payment service, the only way many creators can get paid is to have a Payoneer account. Upon opening a Payoneer account, creators have access to a variety of services. One of the first things to do is connect your local bank account to your Payoneer account. If you, as a creator, are getting paid in U.S. dollars, you should activate a U.S. dollar receiving account within Payoneer. This gives creators a U.S. bank routing number, allowing them to be paid in U.S. dollars. Payoneer receiving currency accounts are available in US dollars, euros, British GBP (£), Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Singapore dollars, Japanese yen, and Hong Kong dollars. Creators can have a total of three accounts in different currencies. One of these should be in your local currency. I will explain later on.

Withdrawal Payment Methods

Method 1: Location, Location, Location

If you are like me and are situated in a country other than the U.S. and are paid in U.S. dollars, You will be required to convert your U.S. dollars into your local currency. Meaning that if I am based in the UK and withdraw US dollars to a bank located in the UK, I would be charged up to 2% by Payoneer. In my case, that currency would be GBP (£).

Converting U.S. dollars to GBP, Payoneer would charge me 0.5% above the market rate. Then I would be charged an additional £1.50 to transfer my converted GBP into my local UK-based bank account.

The process would be the same if I lived in a country that supported Payoneer receiving currency accounts, which are US dollars, euros, British pounds, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, and Singapore dollars.

1. I am paid into my Payoneer account in the currency that the marketplace or platform pays out in. ( )
2. Convert payment currency into local currency with a 0.5% charge above the market rate.
3. Transfer funds into your local bank account at a fixed rate of £1.50 or the currency equivalent.

Method 2

Some platforms and marketplaces are integrated with Payoneer, so they can pay you directly into your local bank account if your local bank account is the same as a Payoneer receiving account. With this method of payment, you pay a fixed fee instead of a percentage of your payment. The fee is set by the platform paying you and is usually less than 30 USD.

Method 3

If the currency you receive is a currency other than your region’s currency, things get a little more complicated. There is an up-to-2% charge on the total amount being transferred to your local bank account. Plus, there may be charges from your own bank and an intermediary bank.

Intermediary Bank: Explained

Example

1. Payoneer has a bank account at Bank A.
2. I have a bank account with Bank B.
3. In order for Payoneer to pay me, Payoneer Bank A needs to have a relationship with my bank, Bank B.
4. However, if Bank A doesn’t have a relationship with Bank B, it will find a bank it has a relationship with that also has a relationship with Bank B.
5. This bank, which we will call Bank C, becomes a middleman.
6. Bank A transfers my payment to Bank C. Bank C applies its own charges and then transfers the remaining funds into my bank account.

Making Payments

You can make payments to contractors or suppliers from your Payoneer receiving account balances. Like withdrawing funds from your local account, the rules and fees are basically the same.

1. Free if the entity has a Payoneer account
2. Fixed fee if the entity is located in the same country as you and paid in local currency.
3. Up to a 2% fee if the entity is not local in the receiving account country.

Freelancer

If you are a creative freelancer and you are paid by clients that do not have a Payoneer account, I believe Revolut or Wise would be a better alternative to receive payments. Which I will explain when I cover both of these financial services.

Part 2: Coming soon!