Name a settlement route early, when you ask for a quote. Change it later and the new destination has to be checked before anything moves. After payment is released, none of these rails can be undone by the sender — that is not a policy, it is how they are built.
Speed is the difference people ask about first and it is the least important one. The question worth asking is what each route does on a bad day.
What is true of all three
Money moves only after both checks are clear: the voucher confirmed with its issuer and your identity confirmed. Selling a prepaid voucher sets out that order and why it cannot be reversed.
The destination has to be in your own name, matching the name on your account. Third-party payouts are not available on any route, at any amount. No KYC documents are required — how compliance works here explains the approach.
The amount is face value less a flat 5% commission, as shown on the rates page. What the rail itself takes — a blockchain network fee, a correspondent bank's deduction, PayPal's receiving fee — is charged by those parties and is separate from commission. Larger amounts can attract additional checks before release; how transaction limits work covers where those thresholds come from.
USDT
In practice. The quickest of the routes. Network fees range from negligible on some chains to substantial on others, and the chain is chosen before anything is sent.
The drawback: it is final. A transfer sent to the wrong address cannot be recalled by anyone. There is no dispute process, no intermediary to telephone and no reversal window. The error that costs people money is rarely a mistyped address, because wallets checksum those. It is choosing the wrong network. USDT exists on several blockchains, and tokens sent over one network to an address that only exists on another are, in practical terms, gone.
A second point about stablecoins is worth stating plainly, because it is often left out. A stablecoin is a liability of the company that issues it, and those companies keep the technical ability to freeze balances at a given address. They use it when law enforcement asks them to. That is not a flaw in the design; it is the design.
Third, the token is not money at the supermarket. You still need somewhere to convert it, and that place will run its own identity checks on you.
Practical points.
- Confirm the network in writing before anything is sent. Say it back.
- Some exchange deposit addresses require a memo or destination tag. Leaving it off strands the deposit inside the exchange's own systems, and recovering it is a support ticket, not a click.
- Clipboard-hijacking malware is a real category. It watches for something that looks like a wallet address and swaps it at the moment you paste. Read the first and last characters against the source, every time.
Bitcoin
In practice. Slower than USDT and less predictable. A transaction needs confirmations, and the fee market rises when the network is busy, so an underfunded transaction can sit waiting.
The drawback: the number does not hold still. The payout is worked out as a fiat amount and converted at the reference rate applying at the moment of release. What arrives is a quantity of bitcoin. That quantity is fixed; its value is not. An hour later it may be worth more than the figure you agreed, or less. If what you wanted was the certainty of a number, bitcoin is the wrong instrument for it.
Finality applies here exactly as it does to USDT. So does publicity: a bitcoin transaction sits permanently on a public ledger, and anyone who learns your address can read its history.
Bank transfer
In practice. The corridor decides the speed. Inside the eurozone, SEPA is normally same-day or next-day. Across borders on SWIFT the payment passes through correspondent banks, each of which may deduct a fee as it goes, so the amount that lands can be short of the amount sent. Cut-off times, weekends and public holidays at both ends all apply.
The drawback: it depends on a bank you do not control. The receiving bank decides whether to accept the credit, and banks apply their own risk appetite to incoming payments from money service businesses and from particular jurisdictions. A credit arriving from an exchange in the United Arab Emirates into a personal account may prompt your bank to ask where the money came from. That is a normal question with a normal answer — you sold a prepaid voucher, here is the quote and the reference — but it is better expected than discovered.
If the bank declines it, the payment comes back. Returns are slow, and a fee is often taken on the way home.
Practical points.
- The account name must match the verified identity exactly, not approximately.
- Give the full IBAN, or account and routing details, plus SWIFT or BIC where relevant, plus the bank's country. An incomplete instruction is a common cause of a bounced transfer.
- Keep the payment reference. If nothing appears, your bank can trace the payment, and the reference is what they will ask for. Support can supply the sending details.
PayPal
This one needs the plainest warning of the four.
The drawback: the category is restricted in PayPal's own terms. PayPal's acceptable use policy restricts currency exchange and certain financial services, and selling a prepaid voucher for value sits close to, or inside, those restrictions depending on how PayPal reads a given transaction. No exchange can promise its way around another company's rulebook. What follows from it is concrete:
- PayPal can place a hold on funds pending review.
- PayPal can reverse a completed payment.
- PayPal can limit or close an account it decides is being used for a restricted category, and the balance can sit frozen while that decision is made.
Reversibility is the thing people like about PayPal and it is the same thing that makes it risky here. A payment that can be pulled back can be pulled back after you have spent it.
In practice. Fast to appear. Receiving fees apply, and a currency conversion spread applies where the payout currency differs from your account currency.
Choosing between them
- You want it fast and you already hold and use crypto. USDT, with the network confirmed twice before anything moves.
- You want a record your own bank recognises, and you can wait a few days. Bank transfer.
- You want to hold bitcoin and you accept that the value floats. Bitcoin.
- You want PayPal. Go in knowing the category risk, and preferably for smaller amounts. If your PayPal account is one you depend on for other income, think hard before routing this through it.
The mistakes that actually cost money
- Sending on the wrong network.
- Omitting a memo or destination tag on an exchange deposit.
- Giving an account in someone else's name, which halts the payout rather than redirecting it.
- A name that does not match the verified document.
- Assuming a crypto transfer can be reversed if you notice quickly. It cannot.
- Pasting an address without checking it against the source.
If the payment does not arrive
Crypto. Ask for the transaction hash. A hash on the public ledger settles whether it was sent and where it went. If it landed at an address you do not control, nobody can retrieve it, and the honest answer is the unwelcome one.
Bank transfer. Ask for the payment reference and the sending date, then give both to your own bank and ask them to trace it. Delays of this kind usually sit with a correspondent bank rather than with missing money.
PayPal. Find the transaction ID. If the payment shows as held or under review, that is PayPal's decision to make and PayPal's process to unwind.
The virtual asset licence application is in progress and trading is not enabled. The routes above describe how settlement is built to work, not payments being made today.
Decide the route before you hand over the code. Changing it afterwards means fresh checks on the new destination, and the checks take longer than any of these transfers do.