Working Online: Blogging and SEO Strategies

Payoneer services are banned by Reserve Bank of India. Bad news for Indian freelancers and blogging community.

Sadly, the RBI had done it once again (as they did it with PayPal) and has blocked the Payoneer MasterCard POS (swipe payment) throughout India, and will soon be blocking ATM withdrawals as well. However, the folks at Payoneer maintain that it is a temporary block and it will be reversed in the future by the Indian authorities. In other words, if you have money in your Payoneer account, there is no fear of losing it in the future.

If you are in need of the money in your Payoneer MasterCard, you can try these steps to retrieve it.

If ATM withdrawals have not been blocked yet, so you might want to try out the nearest ATM and withdraw all the money. Since Payoneer does not charge any money for the upkeep of the card if the balance is empty, you can flush out your entire savings at one go.

You can contact Payoneer and reverse your transactions back at the originating site (such as oDesk or Elance or iStockPhoto). From there you can use the many types of different withdrawal methods to get your money back. Payoneer management is working with Indian authorities to resolve this issue, similar situations like that happened in past and they proved temporary.

May be RBI is taking these steps to improve its tax network but freelancing is a source of many for their bread and butter in India. These steps are going to hurt badly these individuals.

Javid has asked this question:

I want to put my sites on different Adsense accounts. I tried to create another one but I failed. Is it possible to create multiple Adsense accounts?

Sure, multiple Adsense accounts can be created. Only limitation is that you need a new separate entity with separate address from that of previous one to create another Adsense account. It means one individual cannot have two Adsense accounts but your siblings, spouse or a friend can have another account for you.

You have two options.

1. Create an account in name of some relative or friend but use a separate address.

2. Register a company and create Adsense account in name of that business. You will need a bank account in name of that company in order to receive payments. To have more then one account, setup multiple companies and have Adsense account in their name. Only limitation is that they should have separate address.

Some have worried about using their Adsense  accounts from the same I.P.  I haven’t seen this to be a problem. Set your accounts up legitimately and don’t worry about it.

This is the legitimate way of setting up multiple Adsense accounts. There are many ways to do it non-legit

Change is good, change is healthy and it makes things pleasant. SyedAqeel.com is a 2 year old blog and I admit that I had not justified my efforts for it. Its time for change at this blog in terms of design, writing frequency and marketing efforts. Blog needed a decent layout, we had used default Thesis layout for last 2 years. Finally I decided to to give it its new look. In past 1 week our designer Nasir Hayyat was busy working at new design and its finally online now. You can see new design now and give us some insight at how it can be further enhanced.

I’m not taking this design change as just a design change, I’m taking it as an attitude change. Long awaited design change is made to evolve this blog and take it to next level.

Please let us know how do you find it.

This news is not new for most of our readers but I’m sharing it just because someone might still be looking for this information.

Yes, Payoneer’s Pakistan ban is over, thanks to Payoneer management who have made the decision to stop their partnership with Meta Bank (Previous issuer of Payoneer Master Cards). Payoneer has now partnered with Choice Bank Limited in Belize. Card limits are increased and they are now double too (good news for power freelancers).

Payoneer is shipping new Choice cards to its card holders. New Choice cards will work in Pakistan normally. So everyone should stop worrying and start enjoying their work life.

Card Verification Update

Payoneer requires verification of your identity for new cards. You have to submit a photo ID for verification.  For this you can submit a scan of your driver’s license, passporte, service card (if you are a job holder) and even domicile (domicile have your photo on it and is issued by government, so its accepted too).

Payoneer accepts national ID card (in Urdu). One of my friends submitted his national ID card and his account got verified. However, I recommend you to submit English language documents for faster approval.

iKobo the prepaid VISA card for international money transfer to 170 countries has launched a new service, iKobo for business. This service is similar to Payoneer’s partner program in which US based companies can send payments to associates (employs, freelancers, affiliates) worldwide.

How does it work?

1. iKobo partners can load their iKobo account with funds from your U.S. bank account
2. Distribute funds to their payees either one at a time or simultaneously
3. Each recipient will be issued an iKobo Prepaid Card
4. Funds are instantly loaded onto the cards and can be withdrawn from over 1 Million ATMs or used to make purchases at the over 20 Million merchants who accept Visa

iKobo is not likely to get effected by policies of US financial institution like what happened with Payoneer  (earlier this month Payoneer banned 6 other countries and Pakistan due to strict financial regulation measures taken by US authorities).  Ikobo is a non US company so chances are it will continue to provide its services to countries like Pakistan. Ikobo is managed by M2 Financial, Ltd, based in Antigua, West Indies. iKobo Prepaid Visa Card is issued by Global Bank of Commerce, Ltd Intigua & Barbuda, West Indies.

iKobo supports Pakistan, so if you are a freelancer you can request your work provider (individual) or company you are working with to add iKobo as a Payoneer alternative.

More information from official iKobo for business page.