Just wondering if anyone has ordered a Union Pay card through Paxum to replace the now defunct Paxum Mastercard. And have you actually received your Union Pay card. I ordered mine back at the beginning of June and I’m still waiting three months later.
I’ve just asked Paxum for an update, but in the past they just say they don’t know.
I ordered mine on June 1 and I haven’t received it yet and I don’t expect to receive it for quite some time (if at all). I read on another forum (https://gfy.com/22525386-post9.html) that the card issuer they were working with lost their USD bank correspondent, so they are trying to make alternative arrangements with UnionPay directly. Because of the funding issue, UnionPay stopped sending out the Paxum cards. The ETA for a resolution is unknown.
Well, thanks for the information. Funny, Paxum never told me any of that on the couple of occasions I inquired, I simply got a “we have no information, sorry.”
For the time being, I guess I’ll continue to have to get my money wired and get gouged an extra processing fee.
Paxum charges $50 to send the wire, and even though I indicate what intermediary bank to use, whatever processor Paxum uses to do these wires uses a different intermediary bank so they can collect another $30 fee. That’s $80 plus another $14.95 my bank charges to receive it. The joys of living in Canada.
Have you reached out to [email protected] to see if she can get you a more direct answer than the other support channels?
So it means currently the only way to get money out is wire or EFT?
I use EFT all the time and it works very well but not had a card myself for ages as I dont need it.
I had reached out to Ruth, but hadn’t yet heard back from her when I created this post. She replied yesterday with the following:
Hi Michael,
Global Bank of Commerce is our current Unionpay Card issuer, but unfortunately they lost the ability to receive incoming USD payments as they lost their USD Correspondent Bank. As a result we cannot send funds to them (to fund the cards or pay for activation) and so that has created a delay with being able to activate and print cards for clients.
We are hoping for resolution but I don’t have an update on that at this time.
In the meantime Paxum Bank has already been approved for its own UPI license (unionpay) as a principal issuer. We are now in the next step of the process which is integrating into Card Platforms and Card Printers. This isn’t a quick process as certification is not done overnight, but we anticipate this will be finished within 4-6 months and then we will be issuing cards directly ourselves.
Thanks,
Ruth 
Well thats positive, doesnt that mean they will be able to print their own cards and not rely on others? Well of obviously connected to the Union Pay organisation. Saying that, its certainly skirting around the edges since its not a US or European organisation they use.
Its always the issue with Paxum for sure. Its a market that is tough to operate in, and they are forced to constantly find new banks and partners and ways to survive. The outgoing wire bank we send to for affiliate payments seems to change almost monthly for them. We keep our balance very low in there out of caution. But sure glad they are still there and trying to keep providing a valuable service needed.
Absolutely, im grateful they exist even without a card.
Even CCBill is feeling the squeeze with Banking options for non-US and EU accounts.
It’s getting tougher to run our companies, and we went from running a fully above-board and transparent company to one that is convoluted because of the restrictions, which I find hilariously ironic.