3 ms·
Two real life datapoints. 1. A friend of mine has a small software consultancy. He usually works within EUR area. All fine and dandy there. Then there was a cl
by jgilias 4y ago
Two real life datapoints.
1. A friend of mine has a small software consultancy. He usually works within EUR area. All fine and dandy there. Then there was a client in the US, they agreed on a USD rate for his work. He went to his bank to open a USD account, they did additional AML and KYC procedures and just refused to open a USD account. Didn’t even explain why, he’s not doing anything shady. So, the first USD payment went to his EUR account, and got automatically converted at a very unfriendly exchange rate making him lose non-trivial money on that. Now he accepts USDC and converts on an exchange instead.
2. A different friend has a hardware/software business. A client in an African country found them. The African client wanted to use PayPal, as ‘banks are troublesome’. They didn’t accept PayPal as it can be recalled. So they did the transfer through the banking system which stuck in it due to AML for a month. Because, why are you having a payment from Africa? Are you selling drugs? Are they terrorists? They aren’t using crypto, but it sure would help here.
- hef19898 4y ago1. Use paypal or a credit card, your local EURO based bank (or any other EU currency denominated one) will happily exchange the transferred USD into local currencies based on latest exchange rates. 2. Use Western Union.
- mandmandam 4y ago1. PayPal are notorious, for many good reasons. Credit card companies have shown themselves up too; blocking donations to Wikileaks, for example. Then there's the decentralization factor. 2. Seriously? The time and expense of this compared to crypto is huge. Again, decentralization > single point of failure. Being glib about real benefits and use cases is not helping the conversation here.
- hef19898 4y agoPayPal is not needed for charging a credit card, and international bank transfers take a while but don't involve some weird payment provider in between neither. Also, being paid as a consultant is different thing from donations to WikiLeaks. Regarding two: The transaction cost of crypto might be lower, but carries the risk of losing the full payments as soon as some exchange decides to stop withdrawals.
- jgilias 4y agoSure, there are ways, but inferior and more expensive than digital options.
- Nursie 4y ago1. Services like Wise seem to solve this, I can add currencies to my account there pretty much at the touch of a button. Rates are good and conversion fees low. 2. Less sure about this one!
- jgilias 4y agoYes, Wise was the first option he tried. The problem was that he needed a business account and Wise put him in a waiting list for opening one but never got back. But, yes, Wise would’ve helped here.
- Nursie 4y agoOdd, here in Australia I’m pretty sure I just had to click “Open a business account and give a few details like the ABN. Oh well.
- jgilias 4y agoYeah, no idea, maybe they’re just understaffed for the region or something. So in his case it just happened that the exchange he chose was faster with KYC than Wise. Come to think of it, this actually highlights the point very well. People on this thread generally seem to think that international money transfer is fine. I don’t think Wise would have a business case if that was true.