by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 26, 2017

The greatest weak spot in online commerce and affiliate marketing remains cross-border payments — paying someone in another country. Banking systems are often not available, and often do not communicate with each other.

To ease the burden, ShareASale, a division of affiliate marketing network Awin, has partnered with Payoneer, a global payments company that facilitates cross-border payments worldwide. The goal aims to speed payments and reduce costs for the approximate 5,000 affiliate partners it supports.

Brian Littleton, CEO of 17-year-old ShareASale, expects the deal to improve the payment process to publishers and lower the customer service costs associated with payments across international borders due to poor mail delivery or complex banking setups.

In an email to SearchBlog he explains how the partnership should enable ShareASale to speed payments to affiliates who many not have access to traditional banking services that they have used in the past.

The Internet promised a world with open doors, but cross-border payments are complicated for affiliate marketers. “The Payoneer partnership is unique in that their expertise is focused on this business and they are familiar with the demands of online publishers especially in harder to reach countries, financially,” he wrote.

Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer, said most payments originate in the United States and Western Europe, but Asia remains the fastest-growing region. Those regions include China, India, South Korea, Honk Kong, and the Philippines.

Galit is seeing more opportunities coming from cross-border payments, but also challenges around regulations. “We see more coming around privacy, federal regulations and tax considerations,” he said. “We are a heavily regulated company that invests massively in global regulated infrastructure. It’s difficult to stay ahead of, but we continue to heavily invest in this because we expect continued change.”

Privacy, tax management and compliance, and financial regulation to ensure money laundry is being protected to ensure funds are moving in accordance with the law will become the three most scrutinized policies.

Payoneer enables cross-border payments to more than 100,000 affiliate publishers in about 50 countries. The company works with CJ Affiliate by Conversant, Clickbank, Tradedoubler, and Taboola, among others such as Cake, and Tune.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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