Virtual money is actively used around the world, and Ukraine is no exception. Ukrainians in 2022 more often used this payment instrument in their own financial transactions than in the previous year. The increase in popularity has led to the fact that a large number of people are faced with the need to choose a payment system, an electronic wallet to which they can entrust funds. We invite you to talk in more detail about the best services for depositing and withdrawing virtual money and performing exchanges.
Hot offers from AlexCredit
Modern people use international electronic payment systems for various needs. Using Ukrainian payment systems, you can not only pay for online purchases, but also receive money by applying for an online loan.
If you are looking for where to get money in one day, you can use the services of the microfinance organization AlexCredit. This microcredit service works with different Ukrainian payment systems. To get an online loan on a card, you just need to submit an application online.
Customers of the service can also repay debt on a loan product using today’s popular electronic payment systems in Ukraine. To find out exactly what new online loans this service offers its clients, go to its website and study the current offers. Using electronic payment systems in Ukraine and the AlexCredit online lending service, you can solve your financial problems in the shortest possible time.
TransferWise
TransferWise was founded in London in 2011. The system operates in 65 countries.
How does it work
To transfer money, you need to register. Then select the amount and currency you want to send. After that, add the recipient's bank details and pay for the transfer.
When making a transfer, you need to undergo verification: the service may ask you to confirm your identity or residential address. However, these steps are not necessary if you are making a small transfer from a bank account in your name that matches your TransferWise profile name.
How to use
The service calculates the transfer fee when you enter the amount. It depends on the currency, transfer size and payment method (direct debit, local Wire transfer or credit card). For example, at the end of January 2022, transferring $1000 to an account in hryvnia costs from 2.64% to 6%.
Converting euros to hryvnias is cheaper, the commission for the same amount is from 2.3% to 2.7%. It’s convenient that when making a transfer you can see how much the recipient will receive and in how many days.
TransferWase only works by bank transfer. Money can be received in national currency, dollars or euros. Transfer to an account in any bank in the country or to a monobank card.
Advantages
- money can be transferred to Poland, the USA, Russia, Germany and other countries (65 in total);
- many ways to cash out;
- low commission for transfers;
- it is clear when and how much the recipient will receive;
- convenient for freelancers.
Personal data and virtual money
In order to successfully use electronic systems and break the rules, each user must indicate his personal data from his passport during registration. Such actions are absolutely not dangerous and are protected by law. In case of incorrectly selected material or incorrectly specified data, the user will experience an error when sending or transferring funds.
What about VPN?
It happens that the security system of an electronic service can block dubious transactions that are carried out specifically through the VPN service. To avoid getting into an unpleasant situation, the user should adhere to several important rules:
- First you need to find a quality service that will respond positively to electronic systems and enable the user to perform all the necessary tasks. One of the best services can be called TunnelBear, where quality and speed allow the user not to worry about failures.
- Connect a VPN before entering the website of the electronic service; if you do not do this, you will not be able to log in and an error may occur in which the security system of the electronic service reacts.
- The user should also not constantly change the country of residence in the VPN. If you frequently change the country to another, the system will again generate an error or may even block the user.
- If all of the above points did not help, the best thing to do would be to simply switch to another device (preferably a tablet or phone) and download the TunnelBear system onto it.
These are the recommendations that will help the user use electronic wallets on an ongoing basis and without obstacles.
Connecting websites to online payment in Ukraine
Many have already encountered, and many have yet to encounter, connecting their projects to online payment. In this article I will share my experience in this area. The post does not contain unique information; everything described here can, if desired, be found in other sources. Nevertheless, reading this article will most likely save you a lot of time in the future, and will also tell you about many little things and opportunities that you may not even suspect exist. And so, first, let’s look at what online payment methods exist in principle:
- SMS
- Bank cards
- Bank payment systems (PayPal)
- Non-bank payment systems (Webmoney, BitCoin)
- Cash terminals
In Ukraine they are all represented to one degree or another.
In particular, among non-bank payment systems, the absolute leader is Webmoney, although its prevalence is significantly inferior to Visa/Mastercard; among banking systems, Privat24 certainly deserves attention... And so let’s return directly to accepting payments. When connecting payment, we have 2 options:
- Connect all possible payment systems through an aggregator
- Connect each payment system separately
Aggregators
At first glance, the aggregator seems to be an extremely attractive offer: you only need to install 1 script, conclude only 1 contract, or even work without it, don’t bother with choosing payment systems, because the aggregator has done everything for you.
In reality, everything is a little different. Looking at such advantages, we forget about the disadvantages. Firstly, by connecting to an aggregator, we overpay. At best, you will have to pay 3% of the payment amount. Secondly, an extra element is created in the payment chain, which, on the one hand, potentially reduces the number of users who will complete the purchase process, and on the other, creates an additional point of failure. Thirdly, all aggregators in one form or another have restrictions on the amounts and timing of withdrawals. Also, to connect Webmoney payment, you will still have to obtain a personal passport and link your wallet to the system. If all of the above does not scare you, I can personally recommend Interkasa as a very good aggregator for Ukraine, with instant connection and a 3% commission.
SMS
Otherwise, let's continue our consideration. Let's start with payment via SMS, here are its characteristic features:
- Suitable only for inexpensive goods/services (<20 UAH)
- High commission 50-64%
- Available to almost everyone
- Few ready-made modules for CMS
I immediately foresee questions like: “On site X they say their commission is 55%, but you say that there is no less than 60%.” So, on 99% of SMS aggregator sites they write % of the cost of SMS without VAT. Those. the percentage of the real value is 1.2 times lower. Now let's move on to the steps required to connect such a payment: First, we need to select a partner for accepting payments. We won’t consider the option of opening your own short number, it will be a bit expensive. However, few people know that there are 2 types of SMS aggregators: The first takes a higher commission percentage, but provides prefixes on short numbers for free. With such an aggregator you will receive on average 36 kopecks per SMS costing 1 UAH. There are a majority of such aggregators and you can easily find the right one in your search. But there is also a second type, in which there is a monthly fee of about 100 UAH/month for 1 prefix on 1 number, but the average% increases from 36 to 40 kopecks per 1 UAH, which can be very profitable for large volumes. Of the second type of aggregators, I know only Alfa-SMS; unfortunately, they work only under a contract and only with legal entities.
Webmoney
Let's move on to consider non-bank payment systems. I don’t see any point in connecting anything other than Webmoney in Ukraine, since the share of users of other systems tends to the share of IE6 in the browser market. The characteristic features of Webmoney are as follows:
- Any payment amounts
- Minimum commission
- Low availability (Unfortunately, among UAnet users, the share of WM owners is small)
- Availability of modules for most CMS
So, what do we need to connect payment? If you are an individual, you will need a Personal (25-30WMZ) or Initial (2-5WMZ) passport in the system. The initial certificate is obtained from a personalizer; it costs 5-10 times less than a Personal one, but it imposes significant restrictions on the amount of payments accepted, namely:
| wm currency type | in a day | in Week | per month |
| WMR | 5000 | 15000 | 30000 |
| WMZ | 200 | 500 | 1000 |
| WME | 140 | 375 | 750 |
| W.M.U. | 1500 | 4000 | 8000 |
| W.M.B. | 100000 | 300000 | 600000 |
| WMG | 50 | 150 | 300 |
A personal certificate is obtained from Registrars, it costs more and does not have such restrictions.
You can cash out WMU without additional commissions (except for the standard 0.8%), using the card withdrawal service, for example, Delta or Platinum Bank, which have no commissions for non-cash deposits of funds, as well as free withdrawals from the wide network of Atmosphere ATMs. What about Legal entities? For those who work on the general taxation system, you will also need to obtain a Personal Certificate for the responsible employee (certificates are not issued for legal entities), and then enter into an agreement with the Ukrainian Guarantee Agency. As a result, the money will be transferred to your wallet, from where you can withdraw it to your current account at any time minus the system commission - 0.8%. If you work on a simplified taxation system, then by law you do not have the right to accept payment in a form other than cash, so you will need to enter into an agreement with the same Ukrainian Guarantee Agency to accept payments without a Webmoney wallet directly to your current account. The commission in this case will be 2%.
Payment terminals
The characteristic features of the terminals are:
- Any payment amounts
- High Availability
- Relatively high commission (3-5%)
- Difficulty connecting without aggregators
- Lack of modules for CMS
At first glance it doesn't look very rosy. However, not many people know that you can also accept payments through Privatbank terminals, which have a low commission (from 1%), are very easy to connect to for payment, and in terms of prevalence are practically not inferior to other terminal networks. Connection of such terminals is carried out through liqpay acquiring for individuals and Internet acquiring of Privatbank for legal entities. We will talk about this below, as part of the discussion of acquiring payment cards, since both services are closely interrelated.
Payment cards, for individuals
And so we finally came to the most common payment method on the Internet - payment cards. For individuals, the only and only option for accepting payments is the Privatbank system liqpay. The system has a number of restrictions, namely accepting cards only from CIS banks, as well as acceptance limits of no more than $250 (or the equivalent in another currency) for a one-time payment from a card and no more than $500/month for 1 card. The maximum amount available for cash withdrawal is $50,000/month. Among other things: - an inconvenient verification system with an SMS password (not to be confused with 3D-secure/SecureCode) - if the user has not paid with this card through the system before, the payment can be verified up to 24 hours, but I haven’t noticed this in practice for a long time. You can also connect payment through Privatbank terminals. But here I’ll make a small remark: after the introduction of the new payment interface, the choice of payment through terminals has been made so unobvious that the choice of payment method (card or terminal) should be made in the site interface and not provided to the acquiring interface. After payment, the money in full goes to your virtual account in the liqpay system, from where you can either spend it on replenishing your mobile phone, or send it to another user of the system, or withdraw it to a card (it is at this stage that the commission is charged). The commission and limits for withdrawals not to a Privatbank card are quite gloomy, so we will consider the option with a Privat card. Option one, simple:
- Open the free “Universal” card
- We withdraw money to it 0.55$+0.5$
- We pay in a retail network or withdraw from any ATM (commission 1%)
In total, when withdrawing to cash, we have $0.55 + 1.495%
Option two, complex, is relevant at a turnover of 8400 UAH/month
- Open a debit GOLD card (service 80 UAH/month)
- We withdraw money to it 0.55$+0.5$
- We transfer money by payment using the account or card details of another bank (for example Delta or Platinum) 3 UAH
- We withdraw cash from an ATM - 0 UAH
In total, when withdrawing to cash, we have $0.55 + 0.5% + 3 UAH + 80 UAH/month
Payment cards, for legal entities
For legal entities, the situation is a little more rosy, but the choice of banks providing Internet acquiring is also small:
| Bank | Commission |
| Privatbank | 1-3,5% |
| Ukreximbank | 4-5% |
| Raiffeisen | Individually |
| FUIB | 2-2,5% |
| Finance and Credit | 3% + 1200 UAH connection |
| Pivdenny | 2-3% |
| Alfa Bank | Individually |
From personal experience, when the company I work for connected acquiring for one of its projects, we received refusals from everyone except Privat and Pivdenny.
Our banks are very afraid to connect Internet acquiring for projects that do not sell anything clearly tangible and preferably within the country. It took about 2 weeks to wait for responses from banks and agree on terms with Pivdenny. You can certainly do the same and spend several weeks on approvals and refusals, but I cannot help but notice the unique conditions of Privatbank. They connect everyone in real time after accepting the public offer. All you need to do is register on the site, accept the offer and provide the details for transferring funds. Moreover, about half of the cards in Ukraine are issued by Privatbank, which means that the percentage of cards for which you will pay less commission for acquiring is very high. Among the minuses, we can name not very high initial limits: - 400 thousand UAH/month, in total for all payments - $10 thousand/month for 1 card, as well as the same inconvenient payment system with SMS password (not to be confused with 3D-secure/SecureCode) .
As for the tariffs for Acquiring, they are as follows:
| Payment | to PrivatBank account/card* | to the account of countries ua/ru** |
| from PrivatBank card | 1% | 1,5% |
| from other cards | 3% | 3,5% |
| cash (E-Commerce Cash) | 1% | 1% |
*Funds are transferred automatically to the card/account minus commission **Funds are credited within the 1st banking day
What about Privat24?
99% of Privat24 users have Privatbank cards, so you can safely leave only acquiring cards and not connect Privat24.
What about the description of the API and the connection process?
All APIs are available on the websites of payment systems, and the connection process from opening the first page of documentation to starting to accept payments will take you no more than an hour. Therefore, I see no point in dwelling on it separately.
A little personal experience for last
I have my own small project, more of a hobby.
The cost of the service is 1.5/3 UAH, so SMS payment is also a fairly acceptable option. webmoney/sms/cards/terminals connected It took 3 hours to connect, of which cards/terminals and webmoney took 45 minutes each, SMS 1.5 hours, mainly due to the length of the process of connecting the necessary prefixes on short numbers and also text approval about the cost of SMS on the website. Payment ratio – Cards 60% – SMS 30% – Webmoney 10% – Terminals – 1 payment for the entire time Thank you for your attention.
UPD.
Was inaccurate in terminology, in the context of the article: Individuals are ordinary citizens, not entrepreneurs. Legal entities - companies + individual entrepreneur.
How payment systems work
Any payment service is distinguished by lightning-fast transfer speeds, because the transaction is issued in the form of a digital code. So, each exhibitor receives his own:
- Issuer - commission fee;
- The seller saves on cash costs;
- Buyer - discounts, ease of use and time.
So, the technical side is arranged as follows:
1) The signal about the received payment of the receiving entity is received by the acquirer with whom the agreement is concluded;
2) Sending information to the system mechanism;
3) The operator sends the data to the financial structure of the payer;
4) The issuer carries out verification manipulations on the client’s ability to pay;
5) Sends permission to the operation;
6) An alert is returned from the processing center to the point of sale bank.
This chain activates extremely quickly, both for the online store and for its customers - an excellent payment option.
Prepayment by bank transfer.
It is carried out by the client coming to the bank and transferring money according to a payment order or account. Everything is very simple, but there is one thing. A commission is charged to the client. The minimum commission ranges from 5 hryvnia to 25 hryvnia.
pros
- Receiving an advance payment
- No commissions
- Relative simplicity for the client, since such payments are accepted by any banks
Minuses
- The main disadvantage is the presence of a commission for the client
Features of cashing out
As already written above, when withdrawing virtual money, the user receives real money, but the amount is less than what it was in virtual money.
For example, if we take the Webmoney service, then it does not have an equivalent to UAH and therefore the recipient will have an amount in his hands that is several percent less than what was in the electronic wallet.
All services take a different percentage of the commission, and a lot can also depend on the method in which the user decided to cash out.
All wallets and certificates provide cash withdrawal, and with Webmoney this function is available only after the user has completed identification.
The easiest way to withdraw the required amount is to transfer it to a bank card and then withdraw it through an ATM. Also, you can get a card from the electronic system itself (not all electronic wallets have it) and receive money through it at an ATM with a lower commission.
