Sad news for freelancers in Pakistan as Payoneer has blocked its Mastercards in Pakistan. With paypal already not available, this move will bring dissappointment for freelancers who used these cards to withdraw money for their offshore projects. Here is the email which Payoneer sent to its customers

Dear Customer,

Due to a change in requirements from our regulators, as of June 1, 2010 Payoneer cards will be blocked for transactions in the countries listed by the US government as having strategic Anti Money Laundering (AML) deficiencies. This change will affect card usage in the following countries: Angola, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Sao Tome and Principe.If your card is in use in one of the countries listed, we encourage you to use all funds by May 31, while transactions are still possible in these countries. Please note that beyond May 31 your card will continue to be fully functional in all countries not banned by the US government, and we will be happy to load payments to the card without any change. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that the Payoneer card will continue to provide you with valuable service. Please feel free to use our Contact Us page for any additional questions. Please do not reply to this e-mail.

I contacted Payoneer Support regarding Payoneer account and asked them whether we will be able to login to our Payoneer account or not and will we be able to withdraw money from this card outside Pakistan and this was their reply

Thank you for contacting us.

Your card and your Payoneer account will NOT be blocked, you will still be able to login.  You will still be able to receive funds to your card from RentACoder and yes you can use your Payoneer card outside of Pakistan (i.e. in Australia).

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Dominique

Payoneer Customer Support

Sincerely,Payoneer Customer Support

So you can’t withdraw money from ATMs in Pakistan, however you can still use this card on International Websites like for example I can still pay for my web hosting and domains renewal through this card.

The main reason for Payoneer getting blocked is that the drug money coming out of here is in the billions and this is an EU issue. The drugs from Afghanistan flow through Pakistan and head to EU and they are the ones putting pressure on Pakistan.

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