Receiving Affiliate Commissions From Different Countries


Receiving International Commissions

One problem that can arise particularly for affiliates based outside the US is that they often receive commissions in US dollars or some other currency other than their own and want to be able to deposit these back in their own bank account without it costing a fortune in fees. Are there are services to help do this?

Firstly, Amazon’s own International Direct Deposit service is available to many Amazon affiliates and already allows you to get paid into your local bank account from some of the programs for citizens of some countries (mainly the US, UK and EU). For people who cannot use this service, what other options are available?

There are several good services set up specifically for this purpose. In this article we will cover two of the main ones – Payoneer and Wise. These are services allowing affiliates to receive commissions from other countries and other currencies and convert these commissions into their own currency for a fee often less than traditional banks would charge.

Both the Payoneer and Wise services revolve around the same basic idea. They both provide you with dollar bank account details you can put into your Amazon Affiliates (or any other major affiliate program’s) payment section. You can then withdraw to this bank account provided by their service and then onto your own personal bank account for a small fee.

These services are therefore acting as a middleman between you and the affiliate program, such as Amazon, who may not allow much flexibility in what currencies or countries they can pay out to. Services like Payoneer and Wise offer more of these options and allow you to receive dollar payments (or other currencies) and convert these into your local bank account.

Let’s compare these three options in more detail below.

Amazon International Direct Deposit

Before we cover Payoneer and Wise, we should also mention that Amazon themselves have introduced a new International Direct Deposit system in an attempt to alleviate some of these problems of getting paid affiliate commissions from different countries. Let’s explain this service in a bit more detail.

This covers for instance the very common scenario of a non US affiliate receiving commissions from the US Amazon Associates program, or a US based affiliate earning from the EU or Canada programs, as long as they have a local bank account in any one of the USD, GBP or EUR currencies.

The bottom line is that with International Direct Deposit your affiliate commissions from most of the main Amazon countries can all be coverted and sent to this one bank account you have in one of those three currencies. You just need to log into each Amazon Affiliates program and set up International Direct Deposit, and input your bank details to be paid.

You need to input these details in all the applicable Amazon programs separately. It can be used on the following programs: USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Canada. The general process of setting it up for each site is this:

  • Login to your Amazon Affiliates/Associates account for each of these countries.
  • Go to Account Settings and then Payment and Tax Information.
  • Select Change Payment Method.
  • Tick the box Pay Me By Direct Deposit.
  • Fill in the details in the boxes that appear, like name, account number, currency and so on. Click Submit to save details.
  • All commissions from that Amazon Affiliates program will now be converted and sent to that bank account.
  • Can be set up on 7 Amazon programs – USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Canada

This International Direct Deposit scheme is available to affiliates using one of the seven Amazon programs listed above, who has a bank account in either USD, GBP, or EUR located in one of 52 countries, the full list of which can be found here. It basically includes the US, UK, Japan and all countries classed as within the EU, including small islands and principalities.

What If This is No Good to Me?

This can be a good system for a lot of affiliates earning money internationally off Amazon. However, what about other cases where this might not be preferable or possible. We list some such scenarios here:

  •  Your local bank charges hefty fees for receiving these International Deposits from Amazon (Amazon itself does not charge for this service, but your bank may).
  •  You do not have a bank account in either USD, GBP or EUR.
  •  You are not based in one of the 52 countries this applies to – US, UK, Japan, EU countries.
  •  You are earning commissions from one of the other Amazon programs where the service doesn’t apply, like India, Australia or the others.
  •  You are earning commissions from other affiliate programs around the world who do not offer this conversion service, particularly dollar based ones, and need a dollar account to receive them into.

In these cases you need another option to receive international payments in different currencies and transfer them back into your own currency and bank account. This is where services like Payoneer and Transferwise/Wise come in. Let’s look at each of them in more detail.

Payoneer

 

 

Payoneer is the first alternative option we will look, which basically allows you to receive commissions from Amazon or other affiliate programs even if you do not have a dollar bank account.

The idea here is that Payoneer provides you with a US dollar (or other currency) bank account to receive your commissions into, from which you can then transfer your money into your own local bank account if desired. They act as a middle man between you and the person paying the affiliate commission.

Payoneer can be used to receive commission from any company based in the US or EU and receive payments in one of seven currencies depending on your choice:

  • US Dollar
  • British Pound
  • Euros
  • Japanese Yen
  • Canadian Dollars
  • Australian Dollars
  • Mexican Pesos
  • Chinese Yuan/Renminbi can also be received but only spent in China as regular Chinese Yuan. China still has quite strict financial capital controls on their currency.

The process of signing up for Payoneer is very easy and covered in the above video and also in this excellent article. It is available to residents in most countries in the world, and you can convert any earnings received into your local currency and bank account for a small, clearly stated fee.

Basically, once accepted, you can set up receiving accounts in the different countries you want to receive payments from. You are then given checking account details for Payoneer accounts in each of these countries which you can input into the relevant affiliate program payment options and your commissions will be paid into this bank account.

From there you can spend the commissions in currency on a card you are given, withdraw them at a cash point (there are conversation fees) or have them converted and sent to your own local bank account for a small fee. Payoneer can convert your earnings into most currencies worldwide and the service is accessible in most countries.

The Payoneer service can be very useful for those not covered by the standard Amazon International Deposit program because of where they live or the bank account they have, or for people who are signed up to other affiliate programs worldwide and need a way to receive their money.

Click here to sign up for the Payoneer service.

A similar service is the Transferwise/Wise service, which we will now turn to.

Wise

 

 

NB – Wise was formerly known as TransferWise, but underwent a brand revamp in early 2021

The Wise Borderless Account service is another excellent way for affiliates to receive international payments from different programs into local bank accounts and then cheaply send these funds to their own bank accounts.

It is particularly good for global affiliates and freelancers who have signed up to different affiliate programs in different countries and want to be able to receive commissions in different currencies. Their service is specifically designed to do this by providing you with bank accounts in up to four major currencies – US dollar, British pound, Euro and Australian dollar.

If you sign up for each of these countries, much like Payoneer, you will receive checking account details for each of these countries which you can provide to affiliate programs to receive payments in these currencies. It is as though you have a bank account in these countries.

From there you can then either spend the funds you receive in the same currency, or else covert and deposit them back into your local bank account for a small fee. These fees are very competitive and do vary depending on the currencies converted; see the full list of fees here.

Here are the main benefits of the Wise service:

  • Applying for the account is quick and easy and can be done totally online with no bank branch visits
  • Account verification is usually very easy and can often be done by depositing money into one of your accounts. Sometimes you may need to upload a form of ID but the process is easy and hassle free.
  • The account is free to set up and there are no monthly fees.
  • You will get a debit card to spend in different currencies as and when you need.
  • In most countries you will be able to open up bank accounts in four currencies – US Dollar, British Pound, Euro and Australian Dollars – to receive international payments.
  • Converting between currencies is easy and carries a very small, flat fee, much better than other banks and companies. Their exchange rates are also very good.
  • You can also send the money in your business accounts back to your own personal bank account for a very small fee.
  • It has less restrictions than the Payoneer service; you can receive money from more locations and more currencies. See the comparison video below.

The Wise Borderless Account is available to residents of most countries. A list of countries and states where you cannot get an account can be found here. Most noticeably the service is not available to residents of Hawaii and Nevada. All other US states are fine.

Perhaps the biggest benefit to the Wise Borderless Account from personal experience is the ease of signing up. It can be done entirely online and was largely hassle free. You may be required to upload some form of ID but other than that the process was very quick and easy.

Just like Payoneer, it’s widespread availability worldwide also makes it a very attractive and accessible service for people working online in all parts of the world. Both services can be an excellent way of opening up access to more affiliate markets for bloggers and niche site owners.

Payoneer and TransferWise (now Wise) Compared

 

Click here to sign up for the Payoneer service; click here to sign up for the Wise Borderless Account Service.

Oliver

I like to draw on my own experience to help new bloggers and other digital marketers solve common problems encountered when working and making your money online

Recent Posts