I'm still super excited and pumped about what I learned at Affiliate World Conference Bangkok. There is one thing I did notice though that affiliate was paying their drinks with, a bright green card called TransferWise.
Transferwise has made things much easier for affiliate networks to pay their international affiliates and spend it. The biggest issue with international bank transfer are fees or lost transfers between Paypal and Payoneer.
Transferwise fixes this issue. I myself have Transfrewise because I travel, the exchange and international fees I collect get pretty expensive. So I have all my payments sent to a virtual borderless bank - that is what Transferwise essentially is.
TransferWise is an online service for sending money across borders in the simplest of words.
What is Virtual Borderless Banking?
TransferWise acts as a virtual bank by providing you with an actual account and routing numbers to a bank in a country you need a transfer too. For example, if I work with a Ukraine affiliate network - they have to send me a wire and the fees are pretty high for the transfer. Worst there is also a minimum wire amount to be sent.
Instead of paying the wire fee, I can generate a local virtual bank in Ukraine and get paid directly as if I had a bank in Ukraine. This avoids the fees and the minimum wire amount.
Once I determine that I am no longer receiving any more payments from Ukraine, I can just turn off the account and my virtual account information is destroyed. If I do need a bank again in Ukraine down the road, I can just easily create a new virtual borderless bank with new useable banking information.
As a traveling affiliate, this helps me a lot because now TransferWise provides a card that can be used as a regular MasterCard (though it does have some country limitations). It is currently only for personal accounts on TransferWise but it takes 30 seconds to transfer from business to personal easily.
How Does TransferWise Work?
I have seen a lot of affiliates at Affiliate World pay with this card or I saw a quick peek in their wallet when opened. You can't miss this card, it is bright green!
How does this Borderless Bank Benefit Affiliates?
Easily put, exchange rates and transfers are a pain. Having to manage the cost of fees and when payments are received is an accounting nightmare.
TransferWise has all large 'banks' all over the world. Rather than an affiliate network exchanging their $1,000 USD payout when they send it to you in Japan, TransferWise just adds the networks payout $1,000 to their USD bank and pays you the equivalent amount of Japanese Yen out of their Japanese bank. This eliminates a lot of the legwork of the transaction, the costly intermediaries, allowing them to offer you the affiliate a much better exchange rate.
TransferWise, unlike many other methods for transferring money internationally, also has a fully transparent fee structure. You will know exactly how much you pay in fees every time you create a TransferWise transfer, it is displayed prior to the transfer and is guaranteed for 24 hours.
TransferWise currently supports sending money to 60 countries. They cover 1000+ routes (country combinations) across 49 currencies, and they are also one of the few companies offering the true mid-market rate.
So if you are an international affiliate or work with international affiliate networks, then this is a great option for you as it provides you a virtual bank in the country of your choice. It avoids all the fees, wire delays/fees, Paypal and Payoneer issues, that happens in between.
When I receive my payouts, they happen almost the next day they are initiated by the network. So once it is sent or released, I get it the next day and it can be used immediately. Even my Amazon FBA deposits now go to my TransferWise account.
Receiving affiliate payouts internationally can be deceptive because of the exchange rate and hidden fees but TransferWise wants to be very transparent and even their support is super helpful (within 24 hours, my experience) when you have questions or issues.
There are no points or reward systems like a real card, but the main purpose is to cut out the fees from international affiliate payouts. TransferWise is providing you a virtual bank account in the country of the affiliate network you work with, making receiving affiliate payouts easier.
