LiqPay – alternative payment system to paypal

liqpay.pngRecently I had some freelance work done by someone overseas. When I wanted to send him the payment, he didn’t have a paypal account, nor moneybookers account. And he didn’t want to be paid through Western Union since the service charge was too high. So, he suggested that I use a new service called LiqPay. So, use I did! And it went pretty well…

Let me briefly explain how this system works and what were the steps that I went through for sending the money.

About LiqPay (i.e liquid payment, as in electronic payment)

First of all, the LiqPay’s difference from other payment systems is – it’s main mode of authentication for all the transactions (i.e logging in to your account, sending money etc) is through SMS. That’s right, every time there is a transaction, you need to authorize it. And the authorization code is sent through SMS to your mobile phone.

For example, let’s say I want to send you $200. First, I login to my LiqPay accout, then initiate a transfer of $200 to your account. Once the transfer is initiated, the system will send me SMS which will contain the authorization code for this transaction. So, if I am sure and want to confirm the payment, I just enter back this code to the system and authorize the payment. That’s it, now your account should be credited by $200. That’s the whole process for any transaction – authorization code always comes to your mobile phone. This makes it impossible for someone else to use your account. (unless of course he has your SIM card ;)

Registration

Registration is free and doesn’t need any authorization. Registration is done onsite but using your mobile phone. Authorization code will be sent to your mobile phone when registering. Your username will be your mobile phone number.

When you load your account for the first time with your VISA or MasterCard, support team will call you to authenticate the card. They will ask few questions regarding card details, your particulars and the billing address. This is a one time thing and won’t be asked for the subsequent transactions.

Fees/Charges

What makes it attractive is perhaps the low fees that they charge:

  • For loading your account from your Credit or Debit Card – Free
  • For sending and receiving money – Free
  • For withdrawing to your VISA (Credit or Debit Card) – 1.95$ + 1% of the amount transferred.

Conclusion

Basically, everything from registration to sending the money to the freelancer was done within a day. Unlike MoneyBookers which took me more than two weeks to get my account fully functional. LiqPay takes a day because they need to call the card-issuer bank to authenticate the information that you have provided to them. After the first time, subsequent transactions will be processed immediately.

I think I will be using the system some more, especially when people ask me to send money to them through Western Union, or when the amount sent is too large for paypal. Paypal takes around 4% from the transferred amount, + $5 for withdrawal fees. Four percent can be quite big amount when you send large amounts of money.

For LiqPay the only requirement for the payment receiver is that, he/she should have a VISA or MasterCard card, because withdrawals are done to the card.

URL: www.liqpay.com

P.S For Malaysians, I used my al-Rajhi Debit Card for LiqPay and it was accepted.



36 Comments on "LiqPay – alternative payment system to paypal"

  1. Anthony says:

    Liqpay sure offers some flexibility. Thanks for the notice.

  2. Hum, dats great alternative of paypal. Will soon checked it out. Thanks for the attention to this nice system.

  3. Wow. I’ll register right now. It sounds like a well thought out online money service. I like the fact that it accepts debit cards too and not just credit cards.

    Thank you for the heads up.

  4. Chairs says:

    Thanks for the heads up. Any additional competition to PayPal is a good thing…..however, I’m skeptical anyone will make any real dent in their business anytime soon.

  5. I’m always looking for convenient payment methods for clients. This one looks awesome! I like that you simply withdraw money to your card. That’s nifty!

  6. Paypal account is very neccessery when you are doning offshore work.

  7. kiat says:

    wow…this is really cool, i just tried the get 5 cents and send 5 cents through the phone and liqpay web site. Brilliant idea from a Ukraine Bank.

  8. PS3 says:

    Sounds good, i like the fact that you need to authenticate each transaction with your phone. That makes it quite safe!
    Thanks for sharing!

  9. whiteblogger says:

    interesting. Did they accept public bank debit card and tunemoney??

  10. reddebt says:

    wow. its new to me. I will try Liqpay. :)

  11. Well done, Ades… another great site for sending/receiving money online,

  12. whiteblogger says:

    another great site found by you. I like it. Thanks for this review.

  13. Authentication via a cell phone SMS is very interesting. Google used this idea as one option for verifying a Gmail account. I suppose this could pose a problem for those without a cell phone, but the number of people without a cell phone continues to decrease.

    Also, I like their fee structure. It seems that LiqPay charges for the services that cost it money. In other words, LiqPay must pay a credit card company to make a credit card transaction, and that is passed along to users. However, users don’t have to pay for transactions between LiqPay accounts.

    This service sounds promising. I suppose its success will depend on whether a large enough segment of the population will start to use it.

  14. Seems like a superior money-changing system. For people without credit cards the process of internet payment is nigh-impossible. LiqPay goes a long way towards solving that, and the SMS verification really makes it very secure.

  15. rajapayloadz says:

    ades. I aleady try it and they call me. But seems they not understand my english. They not talk to me in english. Honestly, i’m not understand what that girl want to said. She ask my name. I told my name. But she not understand even i repeat many times. Haiya..

  16. Andre says:

    First automatic instant exchange LiqPay, WebMoney was opened. Using it you can buy and sell WebMoney in automatic mode via Visa or MasterCard.
    see http://e-obmen.com/autoex/eng
    exchange LiqPay WebMoney
    http://exchnage24x7.com/eng
    exchange LiqPay LibertyReserve

  17. Finally, an alternative to the thieves (Paypal). Im getting so fed up of being charged 4.2% on every payment that I receive!

  18. Jetpix says:

    Ades, vyvod deneg tol’ko na karty Visa :) poprav’ text :)

    For withdrawing to your VISA or MasterCard (Credit or Debit Card) – 1.95$ + 1% of the amount transferred.

    !withdrawing only to VISA cards

  19. Ades says:

    Yes, they need to improve their support team’s english. Since they are based in Ukraine, the support team has a heavy Russian accent. So not everybody will be able to catch what they are talking.

    - jetpix, corrected. thanks.

  20. Jetpix says:

    If you have problems with Liqpay support team in verification process in voice mode, go to this link https://siteheart.com/webconsultation/2919?byhref=1
    and they will help you.

  21. liqpay merchant says:

    a guy paid me through liqpay. now I check the balance in my liqpay merchant account and the status of that transaction is “on check”. Been like that for 10 hours now. unsure what happens next. is liqpay trying to contact the card holder and/or it’s issuing bank?

  22. Jetpix says:

    2 liqpay merchant: Pls, email me, I will try to help you. 2idisk(a)gmail.com

  23. liqpay merchant says:

    update to my previous post on Feb 5… after almost 5 days, i finally received payment on feb 9. it arrived in my account balance under my cell phone number. now I’ve initiated a phone-to-card operation to my visa debit card and am waiting. it really is sloooooowwwwwww. what can liqpay do to accelerate the whole process?

  24. Muri Online says:

    Never heard that before,and if it is that nice ,compare to perfectmoney that almost the same with them ,which one is better?

  25. ive says:

    Avoid like the plague. Lost $3500
    After paying for goods and services via a website that told me to use liqpay the seller did not send goods or services. Tried to claim back. Cant claim this money back as seller not registered as a merchant in liqpay when told they were. My bank and privatback will do nothing to get this money back for me. Privatbank are helping con artists to commit fraud. Please make sure your seller is a merchant.

  26. Floris says:

    HI
    Maybe it is just my luck, but I made a transaction with them, The money was cleared, but for some reason after 8 day my transaction was canceled. Now I have to wait another 5 days to recreate the transaction. And I have to pay my bank fees again to do the same transaction again.

  27. Tim says:

    Dies this work for US based cell phones?

  28. Dejan says:

    If I changed my bank account and I got new VISA, what do I must to do to register new one? Also, what if I changed my mobile number, and I want to bind already bound VISA?

  29. Hmm..moneybookers are the best actually

  30. Harold says:

    and sending the money I have in my balance to my debit card?

  31. newbiz says:

    This sounds great! I haven’t tried using this liqpay, I still prefer the usual way of my payment process and its paypal.

  32. Really nice work i impressed.First of all, the LiqPay’s difference from other payment systems is – it’s main mode of authentication for all the transactions (i.e logging in to your account, sending money etc) is through SMS. That’s right, every time there is a transaction, you need to authorize it. And the authorization code is sent through SMS to your mobile phone.

    custom logo design

  33. Internator says:

    support only russian cards super suck

  34. I really like this system, unfortunately, I was unable to send to my vendor in Pakistan. :(

Trackbacks for this post

  1. Make Money Blogging Online » Blog Archive » Did you know about 9 Great Blogger I Admire?

Got something to say? Go for it!