November 14th, 2008
Recently 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.
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