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Here's a typical scenario for me, doing freelance Web development work:
- An international client/customer pays me $356.56 USD for my professional Web development services. (If that seems like a strange number to you, keep in mind that I multiply my local currency by ~17 to get the USD value and I charge by the hour.)
- PayPal takes ~$15.99 for the handling and processing fee.
- I create a transaction to send ~$340.57 to my bank account.
- PayPal takes ~$11.89 USD for the handling and processing fee.
- PayPal blocks the request and puts the money on hold until I perform KYC with government-issued identification, since I'm not a citizen of the USA.
That leaves me with $328.69 USD going into my bank account the bank takes its forex handling/processing fee, which can be as high as 3%. Straight off the bat, I've lost ~$27.88 (~7.82%) to PayPal, simply for using their disservice, which is daylight robbery and a waste, IMO. On top of that, I have to provide verification through KYC and wait a whole working week for PayPal to clear the transaction, time I make one.
That's just for the USA, too. If I receive GBP from the UK, I can expect to lose up to 25% of it to PayPal, which is atrocious. I've heard tell that Western Union charges individuals from certain African countries up to 30%. Having never used it, I can neither confirm nor deny that. If it's true though, then yikes on bikes, that's blatant exploitation of some of the world's poorest people!
This nonsense is one of the reasons why I seriously need to implement a crypto payment gateway page on my own Website, one that makes use of services like Now Payments' API. Then, I need to persuade customers to make use of it so that I get paid in crypto. If I was receiving BCH straight into an exchange wallet, I could expect to lose ~1-2% on that amount to exchange and transfer fees, which would equate to ~$3.57-7.13 USD. No forex fee will be paid, since the exchange has a local branch. That's a big difference, isn't it?
Because of going the tradfi route (despite the fact that invoices include my BCH address), I have to factor in that ~7.82% and inflate my prices simply to get what my work's worth from customers and we both lose out. (Customers know this, though, since it's a line item in the detailed billing. I also include the much lower fee for crypto payments in it, as an alternative.) Urgh, what a ball ache that could have been avoided, once again! Yet, this is a recurring theme because many corporate people are too stupid/suspicious to embrace crypto without me wasting time jumping through hoops ... Faithful fiat muppets, the lot of them ... Get ye to the 21st century, folks!
Disclaimer: This post was not sponsored by Now Payments and I have received no commission from them for posting it (although they're welcome to make me an offer if they want to).
Thumbnail image: Photo of a sign by Erik Mclean on Pexels
