With the digital world becoming more and more connected, translation companies hire more and more freelancers from countries other than their own. Making cross-border payments for translation work is not always easy and often expensive. Why are they, and how you can make them less so? Let’s see!

If you are lucky to be based in a well-developed country and pay for translation within its borders only, transaction costs may be relatively small. But if your payment process encompasses more than just a couple of countries with favorable conditions, you will inevitably spend up to 5–10% just on commissions for money transfers. And you might not see clearly where you spend what you spend, as analyzing these transactions takes even more time.

Payout methods also affect the final commission fee a lot. Handling many of them at once multiplies the paperwork and effort even more. Besides, new fintech platforms pop up every year, and you have to follow the updates so that your freelancers get their translation pay using relevant payout options. But worst of all, almost every country has its own, local e-wallets, which many local freelancers will prefer over the generalist ones.

All in all, you spend much more time handling translators’ payments than you would want to. That’s where Smartcat comes into play.

As a company, Smartcat has multi-currency bank accounts and local legal entities in many countries and uses fully digital payment methods to transfer money between them, converting currencies on the fly. This allows us to offer you rates that are more attractive than those offered for standard bank transfers, resulting in rates of less than $1 for major destinations.

Smartcat also supports dozens of payout methods, and freelancers can choose the one that fits them based on their location and circumstances. This includes SEPA payments in the EU, ACH in the USA, as well as many e-wallets around the world. We add new payout methods every week to make sure freelancers get paid for translating in the most convenient way for them. You don’t need to think about payouts at all.

So next time you pay via bank transfer, know that you could have found a better use to at least a half ot the bank’s commission ?

Start saving on cross-border payments today!