Paxum – Canadian service for European customers
Services and limitations
Frankly speaking, Paxum offers a rather standard set of services. Users can make electronic transfers, add and withdraw funds (including withdrawing to credit cards) and make online payments in stores and websites.
Recently Paxum has introduced another service — MasterCard from Paxum. That's a typical plastic card with the same functionality as your MasterCard issued by a bank. You can use Paxum card when paying via PayPal, purchasing things online and so on.
Paxum has two account types. Both personal and business accounts are available for anyone in the age of 18 or older.
A personal account in Paxum can be either verified or non-verified. If you don't want to share your personal information then you have a 10 000 EUR monthly limit for adding funds and your account balance cannot exceed 10 000 EUR either. What's more, non-verified users are not allowed to withdraw money. Therefore if you want to cash EUR from your Paxum account you need to verify it. Verification provides the opportunity to withdraw up to 10 000 EUR daily.
The number of daily/monthly transactions for verified accounts is limited to 5/75 respectively.
Owners of non-verified business accounts cannot withdraw money either. Monthly limit on adding funds is 25 000 EUR. Maximum account balance allowed for non-verified users is 25 000 EUR as well.
Verified business accounts allow for withdrawing up to 100 000 EUR daily without any limit for transactions. Without a doubt, such conditions are favorable for any online business owners from small companies and start-ups to well-established services with large turnaround.
Paxum MasterCard
Card fees in Paxum are different for Personal and Business accounts. Personal account owners pay 0.25 EUR fee for every electronic transaction from their card account to other Paxum account. Adding funds with a wire transfer includes the 50 EUR fee which is too high and simply inacceptable for many customers.
However it's possible to load funds by check or by money order and pay only 5 EUR commission.
Wire withdrawal is also incredibly expensive — the commission is equal to 50 EUR. But again, one may pay 5 EUR fee only for check or money order withdrawal.
The fees for the business account are based on the same principles, but some of them are slightly higher. Please check the full list of fees and commissions on Paxum website in the Fees section.
To sum up the description of Paxum MasterCard we would like to note that plastic card issuing is absolutely free from both private and business customers as well as delivery to the postal address.
Electronic Wallet Fees
Speaking about adding funds to a Paxum electronic wallet we have to admit that the conditions are not that attractive. Just like with MasterCard replenishment loading funds to your account via wire transfer would cost extra 50 EUR. The best option here is adding funds via ACH — it includes 5 EUR commission only.
The same 5 EUR fee is applied to ACH withdrawals. Withdrawal from current account via EFT includes 8.5 EUR fee.
There is also an option to withdraw funds to an external credit card (not Paxum MasterCard). Flat fee is 6% and the bank fee is added. Typically the bank fee is somewhere about 3%, but we highly recommend you to check it with your bank prior to money withdrawal.
Actually, the main disadvantage of Paxum is connected to fees for internal transactions. All major payment services removed them long ago and allowed customers send money to other accounts in the same service for free. By some reason Paxum still charges those fees and there are no hints that they will be removed soon.
Advantages of Paxum
Anyway, let's be honest — regardless of quite high fees Paxum has a lot of advantages.
Firstly, it offers round-the-clock support (available in English only, though). The customer support service responds very quickly — usually they send you an email with the answer in 1-2 hours after you contact them. They also have a phone support working from Monday to Friday (7 — 19 GMT).
Secondly, Paxum offer the best level of security indeed. Their system always works smoothly and securely. There is no real risk that personal or financial information can be stolen and used by someone else.
As for the third serious advantage we just must mention those large limits for daily operations — 25 000 EUR for personal accounts and 100 000 EUR for business accounts. Don't forget, that business account owners can make absolutely any number of transactions! Just try to find any other online payment service with the same opportunities.
Paxum and PayPal have been cooperating for a long time already and now you can quickly connect your Paxum MasterCard to PayPal. In this case transactions from Paxum to PayPal and vice versa would be processed within few minutes!
Finally, Paxum can be easily exchanged for other electronic or fiat currencies. There are few dozens of big exchanges online and all of them work with Paxum. Check any and find the most attractive exchange rates!
Conclusion
Paxum functionality and security are just perfect. We simply have nothing to add here except the fact that there have been no security accidents from the launch of this service (over 6 years have passed since then and it's a rather long time for e-payment services).
Without a doubt, Paxum cares about its customers — prompt and competent customer support service is the best proof here. Furthermore, it's worth joining Paxum's affiliate program as there is a good opportunity to earn some extra money on bringing new people to the service.
The only obvious shortcoming is about fees and commissions in Paxum system. They just could be lower. From the other hand, it's not that bad to pay fees when you use such a reliable and user-friendly service like Paxum.
