JUNE 30, 2020 UPDATE

Payoneer has told us the following:

"We are pleased to update you that Mastercard has now resolved the technical issues mentioned in our previous communication. As a result, your payees’ funds held on their Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard® Card are now fully available for ATM withdrawals, to spend online, or in-store."

The infromation below is no longer relevant, based on what Payoneer just wrote, but we're keeping it here in case you want to understand what happened.

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JUNE 29, 2020 UPDATE

Payoneer has told us that this issue (see details below) has been partially resolved and that the freeze on the Payoneer Prepaid card has been lifted as of 00.01 UK on 30 June 2020.

However, it's not clear whether you can receive further funds on that card so this FAQ may still be relevant and you should check with Payoneer about the status of your account.

Why is this FAQ important?

After the close of business on Friday, Jun 26, 2020, we received an email from Payoneer about the Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard program.

According to Payoneer, the Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard program is impacted by the situation related to a company called Wirecard Card Solutions Limited (WCSL). You might have read about Wirecard in the news during the past week.

Within the past few days, Wirecard filed for insolvency proceedings after the company acknowledged that 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) the company claimed to have on its balances sheets probably never existed. You can read more about the situation in the New York Times.

What does the Wirecard insolvency have to do with Payoneer?

Payoneer uses Wirecard for Payoneer's Prepaid Mastercard. Because many of you have and use that card for receiving payouts, you may be impacted.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) originally froze all card activity, which means that if you use the Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard, you have not been able to use the funds on your card or withdraw funds from your card.

Payoneer has advised us that the freeze has been lifted as of midnight tonight (GMT).

Payoneer says the following: "The FCA has communicated that in light of the situation with Wirecard AG, they have taken these preventive measures with the primary objective to ensure they protect the interests and money of Wirecard customers. Pending further actions from the FCA, payees will temporarily be unable to withdraw the funds on their card, nor receive new payments onto their card. In As an alternative solution, we have other card issuing capabilities that we are ramping up."

Payoneer also says that "Any funds that are in excess of the maximum balance that can be held on a card (on average 10,000 in local currency) are held by Payoneer in regulated accounts at major financial institutions and are therefore not impacted by the temporary freeze issued by the FCA."

Does this issue impact only your payout requests from crowdspring?

No. If you use a Payoneer prepaid card for payments from anyone, you are impacted. Many platforms use Payoneer for payouts and we believe that millions of freelancers around the world are impacted by this issue.

Does the Wirecard insolvency impact you if you withdraw funds via your local bank account?

According to Payoneer, this issue does not impact you if your Payoneer account is connected to your local bank account. Payoneer says that only those people who use the Payoneer Prepaid Masteracrd are impacted.

Payoneer says that "All payees can now easily add their bank account for withdrawal using their Payoneer My Account and we are communicating with the payees on any recent updates."

Are your Payoneer funds safe?

Any requests that we have not yet sent out are safely stored on crowdspring.

We don't know the status of your payouts if we already sent the funds to Payoneer. According to Payoneer, "Even in the unlikely event of insolvency of WCSL, funds held on your payees’ cards remain secure as they are held in regulated safeguarded accounts overseen by the FCA at Tier 1 regulated banks in the EEA and UK."

What is crowdspring doing to protect your payout requests?

We're already hearing from creatives in our community, worried about their Payoneer cards and their upcoming payouts. While we don't know anything more about the Payoneer cards, we're confident that Payoneer will work with you to help smooth a transition to alternative withdrawal methods.

If you haven't set up a local bank account or are not able to set one up, please communicate with the Payoneer team to understand your options. We know that Payoneer is working on other options for payment but don't know how long it will take them to implement those options.

What if you have a question not answered in this FAQ?

This FAQ addresses the important questions about this issue and we'll regularly update it. We don't have any more information at this time than the information we're sharing here.

This FAQ was last updated June 29, 2020 at 21:27 GMT

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