Hi Ed,
The discussion at Tamebay last week, on this subject, pointed out that Moneybookers has not been accepting US customers for some time, apparently due to problems with gambling legalities or some such.

What I can’t work out at this stage, is whether the US operation will indeed be intergrated with the worldwide network that is already in place. Alternatively, is there a possibility that they will effectively create a “Moneybookers Ebay” that will allow trading between the US and European users, without opening the current broader operation to US users?

Quote: “If you examine carefully the new openings and manoeuvrings undertaken by eBay, you will see it is all about enhancing the US market and “sod the rest of the world”. ”

And here I think you are wrong, we now have a payments operator from the USA, one from Australia, and one that covers the UK and Europe (I believe based in the UK), all added to the restricted paperless payments policy of the US site. I honestly believe that this is NOT about enhancing the US site, but about offering local “competing” payment options, so that Ebay can put the same paperless payment restrictions onto both the UK site and Australian site with “local” competitors so that they can get past the problems that they encountered with Australia’s ACCC last year.

Just how I am seeing it, Kevin (hopefully paranoid and wrong)

The only explanation I can think of is that due to the imminent arrival of a US MoneyBookers site, they have stopped accepting US applications via the central English-language site in the UK, preferring not to increase the workload of transferring US-residents to the new site – eBay went through a similar trauma when they were opening the UK site if I remember correctly. I do know that I have US-resident US citizens as customers who have paid me with MoneyBookers for years, although I’ve not heard from any of them for a few months.

The interest on PayPal balances is paid to US citizens resident in the US with a US PayPal account only – no-one outside the US gets that perk. In addition, those of us with UK accounts have to wait up to 10 days for transfers to our bank accounts to arrive, despite PayPal Europe Sarl being a registered Bank in Luxembourg and therefore subject to the EC directive of a maximum of 3 working days to clear transfers (soon to be immediate – i.e. within minutes – according to new legislative initiatives from Brussels).

The nominal fee you pay for withdrawals should be balanced against the “no chargebacks – ever” guarantee that MoneyBookers offers. I am sure that when seen in that light, MoneyBookers is a far more secure payment system for sellers, and cheaper too in the long run (especially for eBay sellers).

Google Checkout has a lot of hidden costs for those who trade from their own websites – such as the annual purchase of an SSL certificate and the technical cost of implementing and maintaining it. Neither PayPal nor MoneyBookers lays that particular nauseous burden on webmasters. In the UK, my experience is that GCO takes 4-5 days to get funds to bank – equal to PayPal on a good day, and slower than MoneyBookers every time (MoneyBookers and NoChex have consistently been 3 banking business days for me, for the six years I have used them both).

[ -- Snip - self-censored -- ]

If you examine carefully the new openings and manoeuvrings undertaken by eBay, you will see it is all about enhancing the US market and “sod the rest of the world”.

[ -- Snip - self-censored -- ]

Ed

Apologies to Henrietta – I made a couple of comments I should not have made – the frustrations should have been directed elsewhere, or held within.

Although the transaction rates Ed has quoted are competitive with PayPal, the fee for withdrawal from the account which I quote from the only rate chart available to me, from the public website, is not.

I am appalled that Moneybookers, which makes money on the non interest bearing float (my funds) will then charge me a hefty fee to withdraw those same funds. PayPal in contrast currently pays 1.18% interest on funds with a Money Market account and does not charge for withdrawal.

Neither is competitive in price or convenience with Google Checkout at 20c per transaction plus 1.9% which automatically sweeps funds to my bank account, usually within 48 hours. It is strange (not) that PayPal funds take 4 – 5 business days to accomplish the same transfer while claiming that the delay is caused by my bank.

At this point in time Moneybookers is not an alternative for US merchants. If terms and conditions change, as happened with ProPay I will review the service again.