 Hello, everyone. So today I wanted to deal with a specific issue that's come that I've come across Quite a few times and I get asked this quite a few times Whether here on YouTube or on my course and that has to do with international payments and so I kind of wanted to address this because I get asked various aspects of this and And the best ways of dealing with it. So I kind of wanted to give my two cents about this I'm no expert. I haven't tried all the forms of international payments But also international payments haven't been too much of an issue for me and so I kind of just wanted to go through this and and Give you a couple options. So first of all to keep keeping in mind for international payments What are they? They're basically that if you are in Germany and you want to get paid by someone in Bolivia You want their money to go to you. You're gonna have to deal with a couple things first of all, you're gonna have to deal with different currencies which can always be an issue and second of all, you're going to have to deal with bank fees and bank fees and Are an issue if many times they're an issue within the same country if you're dealing from bank to bank But, you know, obviously when you have an international You're sending money internationally, you're gonna have to deal with bigger higher more bank fees. So Let's get into this First of all, you want to be able to accept payments internationally That's the main thing and then you can deal with the exchange rate issues and the bank fees Later on and when you're evaluating issues, you know, the different options, you can see which one costs less There's not much really you can do about the the currencies in fact, I wouldn't try to mess around with those because You're not gonna it's not gonna make much difference But with a bank fees, you can try to mess around see what's best But the first thing you need to do is figure out a way to accept payments internationally At least be able to accept them. So what can you do? The first thing most people think of is a bank wire transfer and you have a bank account Presumably whoever you're dealing with has a bank account. They can send money via bank wire transfer This is also and this usually works. There's a way to do this pretty much any bank Of any standing now can send money internationally. However, it's very often also one of the most expensive options because When banks do wire transfers, they tend to like to do it for bigger amounts and so International wire transfers, I should say and so you end up getting charged quite a bit So usually quite quickly people start searching for their options. The main option that I come across Usually is PayPal PayPal is great for accepting money internationally I've always used it to accept money internationally accepted from different currencies and to whatever currency I'm dealing with and from mine to different currencies and that's never been an issue Obviously, you have the exchange rate, but like I said, I don't take that into account I don't think it's it's a winning game to try to play the market in that sense. So That aside, it's usually fine and their fees are Better than if you're doing bank wire transfers. Let's put it that way In fact, they're quite low usually so and most people can open a PayPal account. I've been asked this before in the past and Most PayPal is available in most countries. There are a few countries where it's not available I don't have the list in front of me. I know the list of countries where it's not available was North Korea I think Iran Cuba and And since it's based in the US it's basically those countries where Where in the US is limited in terms of the amount of business they can do with with those countries and So as long as you're not in one of these countries, you usually have access to PayPal and that's okay And so what you can do with PayPal is then if you have PayPal the other person that's PayPal You can accept money another thing that PayPal allows you to do is accept payments via credit card And so if someone else doesn't even have PayPal But they have a credit card they can use that to pay you through PayPal and it's quite easy I won't walk you through it now, but PayPal makes it quite easy to accept or make payment via credit card And so you can do it that way as long as you have a PayPal account. I think that's pretty much in this industry standard right now most people use PayPal and Can send or receive money with PayPal without any issues However, some people can't I've talked to some people who said they've had issues I don't know what the exact issues are but they've told me why I've had issues I couldn't open a PayPal account despite not being in in one of those countries where they don't allow it Which seems odd to me But if that is the case there are other options as well So one that I've come across a couple times is Western Union In fact, I was told recently that this Western Union is actually quite big in places like the Philippines and Vietnam Which I had no idea but Western Union I I myself have never used Western Union. So Do your own if you want to use the Western Union by all means look into it and do your homework But yeah, don't do your own homework, please because I'm just speaking from what I hear around But it is available in pretty much every single country out there And you just can go there and say I want to transfer so-and-so money for so-and-so person and And give the details and then they send it over in terms of fees as far as I understand They're not like they're pretty good. They don't charge too much in terms of fees Mainly because they already have offices everywhere so they can act like their own bank almost and in terms of You know in the old-fashioned sense of letter of credit However, yeah, you know look into the fees yourself and see how much it will cost if this is an option that you would like to use And but just to keep in mind that there is that option there and that Western Union is available in case you're having issues with PayPal Another option if all of these don't seem to work very well is And and that I've seen a couple times is to use one of those websites like Upwork say most of you are familiar with Upwork Upwork you can pay Via the website Upwork and in fact it keeps the money in escrow while the job is being done And this can be very good And I so I've known a couple people who've met not through Upwork and decided to do business together One person hires the other for whatever freelance work But asked to do it through Upwork and what you get there is that you get a way to be able to pay internationally and be You have escrow so especially if it's someone that you don't know very well, and you just starting to do business for the first time It can be safer to do it via Upwork Even if it's someone even if it's someone who didn't hire you directly through Upwork Of course there where you're gonna lose out is the fees that Upwork charges So there as well you're gonna have to evaluate if it's worth it and what's worth it and not You're not gonna get away from these fees. There's nothing that has zero fees when you're dealing with international payments Unfortunately, that's the way it works, but you can minimize them By the way, when you're doing bank transfers a good way to minimize them And I say I don't like to play the currency game a good way not to play it and to minimize the fees It's to have accounts in different currencies. This will depend the country in but like if you're in Europe Many banks will let you open up a US dollar account And so if you're dealing with someone in the US then you can accept payment in dollars and you'll have to you'll be charged less for that payment Because you already have a US dollar account Of course then if you want to take stuff out in Euro then you have to deal with the currencies there But at least to keep the money in the bank That can be an option sometimes depending on what your bank offers and You know and what their fees are for that so definitely look into that as well But that's pretty much all the options that I know out there now There are other ones in fact, I've done payments where people want to be paid by check Cashiers check bank check, you know, where you physically mail it and stuff like that. I don't recommend that at all. It really is It isn't it makes everyone's life harder I feel especially if you're being hired by someone and you're trying to complicate their life Don't make it hard for them to give you money make it as easy as possible for them to give you money And that's ultimately the best way to get paid whatever the client whatever whoever hire is he whatever they prefer if you can offer payment in according to their terms, that's the best way to get paid and That's usually what I try to do if they prefer wire transfer I'm like fine. We'll do wire transfer if they want PayPal fine We'll do PayPal if they want something else I'm like fine. We'll do it that way as long as and in fact, I will receive checks I've and you know if they prefer to send me checks. I mean, okay Yeah, you can send me checks and I'll cash them in but usually what I try to avoid is ask people to send me checks Because usually people don't want to have to go write out the checks and physically mail them and whatnot, but If you have a choice try to see what's best for the client because as long as it's easy for them to pay you They'll keep paying you and even if you if your fee is a bit higher than whatever your other option is At least you're getting paid which is better than not getting paid And that's usually the best option and That's usually the best option and that's usually what I shoot for I don't even look at the fees that much anymore Also because a lot of them are changing and they're you know, they're getting a lot more competitive But if a client has a certain preference boom right away, I'll say that's fine I can do it that way as long as I can do it that way And so yeah, those are my recommendations for accepting international payment It isn't with a little bit of homework You can usually figure out a way and it isn't that hard in this day and age to find a way to do this Whether it be bank transfer one of these things like PayPal or western union or just using one of these websites like Upwork and whatnot Where you can pay each other through through the website itself Um, so yeah, hopefully you find this useful by the way There there are many other if you want to get inventive about it They're like if you want to use your imagination there are other ways to do this and a lot of people I mean, I haven't had it for I haven't seen it for freelancing per se But you know if someone is in the u.s Like if you have a good trusted friend who's in the u.s Or in the same city as the provider or something like that You can have them pay that person and then you'll figure out with them how to do it There are many ways you can get creative with this But it can also complicate your life a lot So if possible try to stick with one of these standard measures and again If possible whatever the client prefers that's where you that's the way you should do it Um, so yeah, hopefully you found this useful if you have other ways that you accept international payments Or that have worked for you well in the past then feel free to let me know I'm always curious about different ways of accepting international payments. These are the ways that I've been doing it thus far Um, I know there are other options like in the states now everyone's using Venmo But I haven't seen Venmo at all for international payments yet. I don't even know if it's possible for international payments Um, you know, but I might get there soon. So that might be an up-and-coming option But uh, yeah for now, that's what I've come up with. Hopefully you can find it useful And please let me know if you have other options that you find as useful or more useful than those And otherwise, I'll see you in the next video. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Sabeidum