f you’ve completed a large domain name acquisition or sale, it’s likely that you used Escrow.com for the transaction. At the present time, Escrow.com only allows for transactions in US dollars, but that will soon change.
In April of this year, the company plans to begin offering clients the ability to make purchases or sales in Euros. They will not be doing any currency exchanges, so when a transaction is started in Euros, it will be disbursed to the seller in Euros. As always, funds will be held in a non-interest bearing trust account at Bank of America.
According to Andee Hill, Director of Business Development at Escrow.com, “over half of Escrow.com transactions involve an international buyer or seller.” Based on customer feedback and statistics, the Euro makes the most sense to be used in addition to US Dollars. The company may expand into additional currencies as demand dictates. The fee structure will closely mirror the current fee structure the company uses for US Dollar transactions.
This is going to be a big deal for the company and it will save international customers quite a bit of money. They will no longer need to worry about currency exchanges, which can take several points off of both ends of a transaction. This is especially important on large deals.
I will let you know when Escrow.com begins offering to transact using Euros. I am told it will be right around the time of the Domaining Spain conference at the end of April.
So how does that work, say a buyer from Europe pays in Euros to a US based seller.
The US based seller sends the funds to their US bank account via ACH, and their bank automatically converts EUROS to USD?
they have been talking about this for a long time and is long overdue
it’s good news, don’t get me wrong, and thanks for posting!
what i really want to see is the £ GBP added, personally
so if escrow are reading PLEASE add the British £
At eCOP.com we are offering the support of several currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, … CAD and AUD) for around 9 months now but strangely +95% of transactions continue to be in USD. Escrow.com should see the same trend, people complaint about using their currency but finally use USD for domain transactions.
ecop seems like a good service, I wish you would rebrand. When I have end users who are skeptical about escrow, and sending thousands of dollars over, any little thing, can kill a deal, so the escrow.com brand, even though they maybe unaware of it, always helps give them that bit of confidence, to send thousands of dollars over, all based on a few good faith emails. I don’t blame them for being nervous sometimes. I just have always hated the ecop branding from the start, even though the service seems like a win win from all sides. I don’t even think of using it, because I know it will most likely spook the buyer.
Tom,
The situation is different of what you describe:
For end user sales, the buyer most of the time NEVER purchased any domain previously so he does not know Escrow.com, so if the seller proposes eCOP.com then the buyer generally does not see any reason to decline the suggestion.
When it’s a sale between domainers, most know we run the site and feel comfortable. The main barrier is domainers are customers of Escrow.com for so many years that’s the service who come to their mind the first time, even if most expensive, even if they still not handle the type of transaction they want secure.
This is why we continue working hard innovating and offering features nobody else still offer, and new ones are comming next week.
Rome has not been built in one day!
@Tom – When the transaction is created, the currency will be selected. Escrow will receive, hold and disburse in that currency. We will not be involved in any exchange between currencies.
@Guy – Yes, Escrow is reading 🙂 We will expand to additional currencies as business demands. I will put you down for GBP.
@Andee Hill
I will use your service more often if you offer GBP.
I defiantly prefer service with a long, reliable reputation like Escrow.com over ecop.
I am not using ecop and will not for a few reasons. One of them this service is run by domainer.
Two for GBP. I’m keeping a list!
Please add Indian Rupees.
Since I make bank, I don’t worry about money.
I have so many good to great to awesome to “oh my god, you own that?!!!” domains that I already know I am a millionaire several times over.
Why work when you can play?
GBP please, long overdue.