Do you publish books with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and don’t have a US/EU bank accounts to receive the monthly royalty payments? If you only have bank accounts in the non-US/non-EU countries, you might be wondering how to receive the monthly payments from Amazon sales using Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) rather than waiting for the whole period of crossing the minimum payment thresholds, and then receiving a physical bank check (or cheque) via postal mails. Well, even if you are okay with receiving bank checks, you risk losing them along the way. I used to have similar concerns and certainly needed to find smart ways to process the money transfers.
Well, I have been living in China for about two years. Since May 2019, I started self-publishing books with the Amazon KDP (all my books, both the paperback and Kindle editions, are available on Amazon). The book sales picked up in due course and it was time to collect the royalties (Amazon sends money to your bank accounts in about two months after the sales).
In this blog-post, I will share with you my experiences with TransferWise, one of the popular international payment gateways. If you just don’t want to go through the whole article, register here for a TransferWise borderless-account, it’s really safe, ultrafast and reliable. Moreover, following the link, you will save a handsome amount of money for your upcoming fund transfers from TransferWise. Believe me!
In my case, although I have had bank accounts in India (State Bank of India), China (Bank of Communication) and Singapore (DBS and OCBC); I never had a bank account in USA or EU countries. Moreover, Amazon KDP doesn’t send money to Singapore and Chinese bank accounts via wire transfer and/or EFT. Somehow, even PayPal is not yet supported with the KDP. Of course, Amazon does send EFT to Indian bank accounts (I have a bank account with the State Bank of India, SBI).
The problem with KDP? Well, as you may already know, Amazon has 13 marketplaces (Amzon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.in, etc.). However, the money transferred to my Indian bank account was only for the sales from the two marketplaces, Amazon.com and Amazon.in. How about the royalties from the other 11 marketplaces (such as Amazon.co.uk)?
I felt helpless, as it seemed that the only option for me to receive the royalty payments, from the 11 marketplaces to China, was in the form of physical bank checks. Again, it is difficult to receive international postal deliveries in China (I have had many books lost that I ordered with Amaon.com and they never reached to my Chinese address). Therefore, I was not sure if the KDP bank checks would ever reach to my address in China.
Since I live in China, I was trying to find ways to get the money transferred (EFT) from my KDP account to any of my bank accounts in Singapore, India or China. Thankfully, I found TransferWise!
What is TransferWise?
Well, in case you are new to the international fund transfers, it’s worth to know that TransferWise is a London (UK) based money transfer company. It was founded in 2011 (by Estonians Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus). It offers international money transfers in most of the global currencies, including INR (Indian rupee), USD, EUR, AUD and CAD, SGD, etc. The company has seen tremendous success since its founding. In fact, TransferWise has millions of global customers and its annual profit is estimated to be near $10 million.
How to open a TransferWise account?
Opening a virtual bank account with TransferWise is way too simple and straightforward. Just follow the registration link, fill out all the basic information and upload a copy of your ID (such as passport). Your account would be approved within a few seconds. It’s really that fast!
How to get TransferWise account numbers?
Just go to the Balance tab in the left panel of TransferWise dashboard. Here you’ll see links to open your virtual bank accounts. You can choose currencies and for each currency type, you can have separate TransferWise accounts. Within a few clicks, you get the multiple unique account numbers.
Link KDP to TransferWise
Once you have activated TransferWise account numbers, you can input the account details in KDP’s “Getting Paid” section. If you do not want to have multiple account numbers with TransferWise, I suggest you opening a bank account with Euro currency (German location in TransferWise address). Well, I had opened accounts in other currencies as well (such as USD, SGD, AUD, CAD). However, somehow Amazon did not transfer payments to my USD account. I am still trying to clarify with Amazon about what went wrong.
However, my Euro account never had any issues. Moreover, by having all your money in a single TransferWise account, you can transfer more money in one transaction, and hence, save the transaction commission fees. For example, after I registered on TransferWise, I transferred money from the sales on Amazon.in to my Indian bank account (SBI). The rest of the money (from 12 marketplaces) goes to my TransferWise Euro bank account. Then from the Euro account, I transfer money any of my bank accounts in Singapore, China and India.
Add your local bank accounts
After you have registered with TransferWise, you can link your local banks (Indian, Pakistani, Singaporean, or any country’s) to TransferWise. These local bank accounts could be yours or someone else’s. Once the accounts are linked, you are ready to transfer money from your TransferWise account to any of these local bank accounts (e.g. in Singapore, China and India).
Transfer money from TransferWise to elsewhere
Well, I have transferred money from my TransferWise account to Singapore, India and China. It works well every single time! For the fund transfers to China (Union Pay cards of Bank of Communication), it takes a bit longer. However, for the money transfers to Singapore (both DBS and OCBC) and India (SBI), it always happened within a few seconds. That is to say, after I click money transfer button on TransferWise, I receive the converted money to my Indian and Singapore bank accounts in less than one minute. Moreover, the TransferWise currency conversation rates are much better than what Amazon EFT would usually offer me (such as, from USD to INR for the initial payments to my State Bank of India account).
TransferWise debit card
You can also apply online for a TransferWise debit card. Well, I just wanted to transfer money from KDP to my local bank accounts, so, I never applied for a TransferWise debit card.
Customer services
If you have ever used Payoneer, you may already know how the poor customer services sucks! I must assure you that the TransferWise customer services are quite good. You can either call them or send emails. I usually email them my queries (actually, there are not many issues and you’ll rarely need to contact them).
Is TransferWise safe?
Yes, quite safe. Most of the time when I login to TransferWise, they’d send a One Time Password (OTP) to my phone number. This is a two-layer security mechanism. As such, I personally don’t seem to feel any safety issues with TransferWise.
TransferWise Alternatives
Well, there are quite a few alternatives to TransferWise. In fact, in the beginning I tried Payoneer. You know, I submitted all the documents to Payoneer and despite 3 months already being over, they have not yet opened my account. Moreover, the Payoneer customer services seems to be quite frustrating. Skrill seems to be somewhere in between TransferWise and Payoneer. However, my favorite money transfer channel remains TransferWise. Again, PayPal is not supported with the KDP.
In summary, once you link your KDP account with TransferWise, you will receive the EFT payments monthly (based on your Amazon sales). No need to wait to reach the payment thresholds. No need to worry for the arrival/loss of the bank checks in transit. In fact, once I had a KDP royalty of € 0.27 for the Kindle reads [Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read from KU and KOLL] from the Italy marketplace (Amazon.it), and even this amount was transferred to my TransferWise Euro account. Make no mistake, my recommendation goes with TransferWise.
How is your experience with TransferWise fund transfers?
If You have any question about KDP book publishing or payment transfer from the KDP, living or working in China, etc. do let me know in the comments! Feel free to post in our forum so that others could also contribute and learn. For regular updates like us on Facebook, or follow on Twitter!
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Wish you a wonderful experience with both the KDP and TransferWise!
Cheers!
Last updated: Monday, July 13, 2020
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