PayPal is one of the most amazing inventions of the 20th century. A form of payment based on an email address that’ safe and quick was just what the emerging online retail business needed – and there it was, creating a firewall between the stores and the shoppers’ credit cards. No wonder its use spread like wildfire, turning it into one of the most used payment methods online. It felt safer than using a credit card, even if the same digital encryption technology is used to secure transactions at All Slots, one of the most secure places you can spend your money on fun. But it grew too big and too complex for the tastes of many – and it has its share of issues, too. Just search for “funds held by PayPal under review” and see for yourself. But are there alternatives? Well, there are quite a few you might not have heard about.
Amazon WebPay is like PayPal, but cheaper – it is basically free. Or, as the Amazon Pay website puts it, “Your purchase incurs no transaction fee, no membership fee, no currency conversion fee, no foreign transaction fee, and no other fees”. And it is quite flexible, too, allowing you to pay through a text message, for example. It seems like Amazon’s means of attacking the current leaders of the online payments market, like PayPal and Visa, by undercutting them with its non-existent fees.
Neteller is a pretty expensive internet payment service – its fees often exceed those of its competitors. But it has one major selling point that makes it stand out as an alternative to any others: its Net+ prepaid card. Basically, it is a MasterCard plastic that is linked directly to your Neteller account. You can use it to pay online, to pay in real life, even to withdraw money from ATMs, tapping into the funds you have in your Neteller account. It does have its share of fees – up to 1.75% of the transaction.
Last but not least let us mention AliPay, a payment method that’s a bit like PayPal on steroids. It is perhaps the biggest online money transfer service in the world that you likely never heard about – it is only accepted in about 70 countries, which is nowhere near the international penetration of PayPal. It has a well-developed mobile payment solution, and – given that it is part of a major Chinese retail empire – it offers its users a series of benefits. Unfortunately, if you don’t shop at Chinese retailers, it is pretty unlikely for you to find online shops with this payment method. But it is expanding as we speak – in the future, it might become a viable alternative to PayPal.