Officially an ikobo card holder!

Yup, that’s right! My ikobo card just arrived today. Yeah, baby! Wohoo!!! This really made my day!

Now, I can take full advantage of its services. Wait… you do know what ikobo is, right? E-wallet… Debit Card… Substitute for paypal? Do these clues ring any bell? Alright… alright… looks like I may have to elaborate a bit  about ikobo. First off, here’s a link of their site:

http://www.ikobo.com

You all know that I do art commissions from time to time, right? And most, if not all, of my clients are US-based. So, I needed an online money transfer service that could handle all the payments or remittances. Sure there’s paypal to do just that. But you need an affiliate credit or debit card in order to verify your account…. the kind of card that I do not have — actually, I do have a BDO debit card, unfortunately, it’s not accepted in paypal.  So, I looked for alternatives. Then there’s xoom.com. Oh yes… just what I needed. With xoom.com, payments are directly transferred to your Philippine Bank Account which happens to include BDO. Well, there’s a BUT. There’s no doubt that it is one of the most secured money transfers online especially for Pinoys who do not have the luxury of acquiring a credit card. Unfortunately, the minimum sending limit does not meet the promo rates I was planning to apply for my commission projects. Xoom.com only allows $25 for its lowest transfers. But I needed a much lower amount like $10 to $20 — and paypal can cover that… grrr!!!. 

So, for months, I settled on $25-and-above rates. So, why go down the ladder you might ask? Obviously, every part of the worl is experiencing and greatly affected by Global Financial Crisis especially in U.S. And I did mention above where majority of my clients are from, right? Only one thing must be done… COMPROMISE!!! So, it left me scouting for another option aside from using xoom.com. I was persistent… mind you, doing commissions has helped me a lot financially, so I had to be aggressive. After seems-like-years of skimming the internet world, I finally stumbled upon ikobo.com. Their service is almost in parallel with paypal and it’s conveniently useful for Filipinos like me. I reviewed the details of their products and services, and then… BAAAM… THIS IS PERFECT!!! The ultimate solution to my problem! I signed up and the rest is history.

So, what is ikobo? What does it do? We’ll, I’m not good at marketing and wanted to introduce this to you not in rhardozed way. So, I’ll just quote their FAQ from their site… just the basic ones.

How does iKobo work?
Sending someone money for the first time:
Go to www.ikobo.com, click the ‘Send Money Now’ button and follow the on-screen sign up instructions. Set up an iKobo account by providing us your information that we can verify, telling us who you want to send money to and how much. Then, enter your credit card or bank account information to fund the money transfer. The minimum amount you can send is $10 per transaction. The maximum you can send is $1,000 per transaction, depending upon the limits we assign you. If you are a US sender, you may send funds to up 4 cards at once. Please note that you cannot send money to yourself.

Receiving money from someone for the first time:
The recipient is shipped a re-loadable iKobo Visa® Prepaid Card already loaded with the funds you transferred. The card can be used for retail location purchases, online purchases, or ATM withdrawals and can be loaded with additional funds from any iKobo sender.

How do I sign up for an iKobo account?
Sender
Go to www.ikobo.com, click the ‘Send Money Now’ button and follow the on-screen sign up instructions. Set up an iKobo account by providing us your information that we can verify, telling us who you want to send money to and how much. Then, enter your credit card or bank account information to fund the money transfer. The minimum amount you can send is $10 per transaction. The maximum you can send is $1,000 per transaction, depending upon the limits we assign you. If you are a US sender, you may send funds to up 4 cards at once. Please note that you cannot send money to yourself.

Recipient
Once you have received an iKobo Visa® Prepaid Card, you can login to www.ikobo.com using your card number and PIN. Here you will be able to set up your account so that you can edit your personal information, track card activity and check your card balance.

What payment methods can I use to send money?
You can use a credit/debit card or a bank account (US only) to send money. Currently we accept only Visa and MasterCard.

How much does this cost?
Signing up and opening an account with iKobo is free. To see a detailed list of all the fees associated with transferring money with iKobo.

Transaction Description Fees
Transaction TypeFees ($)
ATM Balance Inquiry - Free!
Point of Sale Purchase - Free!
Monthly Maintenance Fee - $0.99 USD
ATM Withdrawal Fee - $1.99 USD
Declined ATM Withdrawal - $0.99 USD
Non-sufficient Funds - $30.00 USD
Stop Payment - $5.00 USD
Card Replacement / Duplicate CardStandard -  shipping fees

So, that’s it! That’s ikobo! Isn’t it slick?! Now, the contemplation of migrating to paypal now ends from this point on. Here I come ikobo!!!

rhardozed hirit:
I’m still actively using xoom.com… it just that ikobo.com gets a freshman treatment this time.