This is a hat tip to my friend Mike who just wrote a great blog post about different alternatives for sending money online. Here are the online services he mentions, some I use while others I have not even heard of:
| Conve- nience |
Costs | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paypal | 5/5 | 3/5 | Average fees, Almost everyone has an account |
| Amazon | 4/5 | 3/5 | Free till end of September, same fees as Paypal after that |
| Obopay | 3/5 | 5/5 | Lowest fees of all, not many have an account |
| MoneyGram | 3/5 | 1/5 | Highest fees of all, worldwide reach to many countries |
| Xoom | 3/5 | 4/5 | Fees lower than MoneyGram, limited countries |
Paypal is the winner for occasional payments. If you send money to mostly the same people then you should consider Obopay because of the low fees. International transfers - give Xoom a try and only use MoneyGram if Xoom doesn’t send money to the country you need.
Source: What is the best way to send money online? (at Buxr Blog)
Never heard about Obopay – thank you :-)
How about such payment system like UK Moneybookers?
http://www.moneybookers.com/app/
I have not used them but I know some who did. Also, check this out:
http://profy.com/2008/02/14/moneyexchange/
Here is another way of determining the costs of sending money to different countries. It’s updated quarterly:
http://remittanceprices.worldbank.org/