Competitive Analysis of Popular E-Wallet Services
With the rise in demand for cashless payment methods, consumers worldwide are increasingly looking into e-wallet solutions. However, as there are plenty of digital wallet services available on the market, it’s hard to choose between the different solutions. To help decide, we have created this guide where we analyze the most popular e-wallet services of the industry, including STICPAY, Skrill, Neteller, and EcoPayz.
Let’s see them!
Payment Methods
To use e-wallet solutions, you have to deposit funds into your account. If you want to utilize your balance outside of the service, you have to withdraw it from your digital wallet account. To do that, e-wallet service providers offer a wide variety of payment methods for their customers, which they can use to deposit and withdraw funds from their accounts. Therefore, when comparing e-wallet solutions, it’s essential to learn which payment methods they offer for their customers. For deposits, all e-wallet service providers support a variety of local deposit options, and also credit and debit card top-ups. In addition to the above, STICPAY, Skrill, and Neteller support cryptocurrency deposits. While Skrill and Neteller accept Bitcoin only for funding your account, STICPAY users can both deposit and withdraw their funds via Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Tether (USDT). E-wallet service providers usually offer fewer options for withdrawals than for deposits. For example, at Skrill, Neteller, and EcoPayz, you can’t withdraw your funds via cryptocurrency. On the other hand, STICPAY supports withdrawals in the same four digital assets (BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT) as for deposits. Also, at EcoPayz, you can only withdraw your funds via international bank transfers. At the same time, Neteller supports local bank wires exclusively in SEPA countries, and Skrill offers withdrawals via VISA cards as well as local and international bank transactions. Among all e-wallets, STICPAY has the most options for withdrawals, including international bank transfers, UnionPay China (also available for deposits), and cryptocurrency. STICPAY has also partnered with multiple financial institutions in Asia to offer cost-efficient and fast local bank wires for its customers. Currently, the fintech company supports local bank transfers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, and South Korea, with expansion to additional countries coming soon. As a side note, all e-wallets analyzed in this article offer prepaid cards for their customers, which then can use to withdraw and spend their balance conveniently.
Local Currency Support
It’s also important to see the currencies each e-wallet services support. Our analysis of the digital wallet solutions shows that Neteller supports 27, Skrill 40, and EcoPayz 45 local currencies, while STICPAY offers 33 different fiat currencies as well as four cryptocurrencies to its customers. When you open an account at each service, you have to choose a default currency, which will be used for converting currencies. Once you have selected a base currency for your account, you won’t be able to change it at Skrill or Neteller (you have to close your account and open a new one to do so). On the other hand, EcoPayz and STICPAY allow their customers to change their default currencies after choosing one. While you have to be at least a Silver Level member to do so at EcoPayz, you can modify your default currency at STICPAY any time without any requirements.
Fees
To avoid paying high costs for your transfers, it’s crucial to know the fees each e-wallet service charges for customers. While e-wallets charge a variety of fees, the most important ones include:
- Deposit fees: The fee you pay for funding your account with a supported payment method.
- Withdrawal fees: The costs for withdrawing money from your e-wallet account.
- Internal transaction fees: E-wallet services charge this fee for member-to-member transfers, which is usually lower than the ones for deposits and withdrawals.
- Inactivity fee: Some digital wallet providers will also charge you for not using your account for a certain period (usually 12 months).
Fees greatly vary by the service provider, which we have collected in a table in the last section of this article. Also, some e-wallets charge certain fees, while others do not. For example, STICPAY does not charge inactivity fees for the fintech company’s customers.
Account Tiers
Account tiers are a popular feature among e-wallet solutions. They incentivize customers to transfer more funds with them by offering users fee discounts and additional functionality for higher levels. On the other hand, e-wallets using the account tier model often restrict access to multiple essential features — such as multi-currency support, increased transaction limits, and prepaid card access — for customers with low-level accounts. While Neteller, Skrill, and EcoPayz utilize an account-tier based model, STICPAY handles all their users equally without limiting e-wallet functionality for any of its customers.
Overview
In this section, we have collected the most important data in a table about the four e-wallet solutions we have analyzed in this article:
Originally published at https://www.sticpay.com on September 21, 2020.
