I suppose an “About Me” page is where you would expect to read a third person professional write up on myself. Hmmm…. well that’s not really my style, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you “about me” in my own words. 
Affiliate Speedpay - It Just Makes Sense
January 9th, 2008 by Jeremy Enke
One of my new ventures this year is working with the team at Affiliate Speedpay. I have been given the opportunity to join their team and present Affiliate Speedpay to both poker affiliates as well as poker affiliate programs.
I am extremely excited about this product for many reason. A payment solution in the poker affiliate industry like Affiliate Speedpay is long overdue. It is my goal to make Affiliate Speedpay the standard for affiliate payments in our industry. There is really no reason for a poker affiliate program to NOT utilize this product.
If all the affiliate departments would adapt and begin using Affiliate Speedpay as their main payment processing method, it will seriously raise the bar on the level of professionalism in our industry. As poker affiliates, we are business people and that’s how we should be treated by our partners. There is no reason that we should have to be paid our commissions into players accounts. I know from personal expereince as a U.S. affiliate, it has become a headache each month trying to actually get my commissions into my bank account.
Many sites take weeks to send my checks after I request them. One room I get a check from, but then have to wait an additional couple weeks for the check to clear since it is drawn from a bank in London. Then there’s another room that has owed me money for a long time but claims to not have a way to pay me. Collecting commissions from our partners should not be a difficult task.
Affiliate Speedpay can alleviate these issues for the entire industry.
With Affiliate Speedpay, each affiliate receives their own personal bank account through FBME bank. This is a legitimate non U.S. bank account that you can also wire money in and out of. Each affiliate also receives a debit card that can be used throughout the world at any ATM machine with a $10,000 per day withdrawal limit. This means affiliates can finally access their payments the same day they are made.
The fees that the affiliate programs will pay to use the service are not going to be any more than they are already paying to send us checks via couriers after cashing out from our players accounts.
There is no question amongst affiliates that this is an awesome solution for us. WE however need to be the ones driving this change in the industry. Poker affiliate programs have no reason to change when they are currently paying us into players accounts and recirculating our earnings into rake. I encourage any of you who see the value in ASP and would like to see this in our industry to email your affiliate managers. Send a quick email and simply ask them to look into the product.
Don’t worry, I will be hard at work over the next few months working for all of us trying to get the rooms on board. By sending your AM’s an email or simply speaking with them about ASP, you will not only help me, but the entire industry. For any affiliate managers reading this, you can email me at jeremy AT pokeraffiliateprograms.com if you would like more information regarding Affiliate Speedpay.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
This is very exciting! Even for us Canadians its a hassle because of Neteller leaving. Moneybookers has issues and limits. And there isn’t really anything else that is trustworthy.
A debit card will be very cool! I’m sure many US affiliates will be looking forward to this.
What kind of position do you have with this company JE? Do you personally know people running it? It may be a battle to get some affiliates to trust a new program like this.
Hope everything works out.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
PAP has equity in the company, so I guess you could say I know the people running it.
If there are ever any issues, both AM’s or affiliates can contact me directly and I can help them.
I believe in this product and truly think a solution like this will help differentiate affiliates from players in terms of how we get paid.
January 9th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Excellent! I will send emails to my AM’s and encourage all other affiliates do the same.
I say “top spots” for those who offer ASP.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Wow this is very exciting. I really hope all the bigger programs will start using speedpay. It would make the u.s. affiliates lives so much easier.
Jeremy how do you keep your head on straight. It seems you have your hands into a lot of things.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
There is one concern. What about having a foreign bank account and taxes or risks of getting audited for having such an account.
I think this might be a hassle for affiliates if regular audits will occur just because of having the account.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
If you pay your taxes you will be fine. Likewise you’re probably at a high risk of audit anyways, simply from being in the online gaming industry and all the random big payments we receive.
There is nothing illegal about setting up a speedpay account, nor is there any proof that it will make you more susceptible to audits.
Personally I would think pulling several thousands of dollars from a players account either by bank wire or check would be more risky.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I have been audited and it is no fun.. Keep good records and don’t bend the rules too far..
I too am excited about speedpay.. I hate having so many player accounts at sites I’ll never play at.. I know if anyone can get this going, it’s you JE!
January 9th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
With some of us who have business partners. Will we be allowed to share the same account? As in have 2 debit cards per account?
Will there be ASP account to ASP account transfers allowed?
January 9th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
That has to be the most important question to me Aiden. This industry is a pain for ppl with partners. I’d really love to see programs and accounts that are available and easy to use in that situation. So all of our money can come in, we can both see it, spend it, etc.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I think the first step to get most of the affiliates on board is creating a list of the top AM’s for each poker site that includes their email. This will make it very easy for the affiliates to go through AM and request ASP.
We dont want to tell our regular run of the mill “assigned” AM’s. We want the top dogs. They receive 200+ emails about ASP, he will find it very hard not to look into it.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:53 am
The only sites that I promote that use it so far are (edited) and Pokeraffiliate. It was so nice logging in today to see payments caught up for both sites.
I agree with Dontlook. Ask the AM’s you know personally or have a good relationship with. They’re more likely to actually turn it over to upper management to look at I would assume.
January 10th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I can deal with upper management. And we have spoken with them before. But much of what we hear is that they need to know that affiliates want the product.
Until now it has just been people trying to sell the idea of ASP to the rooms. If we want this to become a standard in our industry, we as poker affiliates need to be the ones requesting it.
If we all request it, they WILL use it. Then our lives will be so much easier. The problem right now is that the execs up on top do not realize how important a solid payment solution to the affiliates is.
We are seen the same as players on the site in terms of withdrawing money. We are different though, we are their marketers and business partners.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
This is a great initiative. A handful of questions.
What will you guys be doing about currency exchanges. I receive a handful of my payments in GBP each month, since USD wires must clear through US banks, they have the potential to be snagged up in US banking.
Since its a non us bank, what will the wire fees be to send money back to my US accounts that handle my day to day business functions.
Will ASP have the ability to deposit back to the rooms. I transact a large amount via the poker rooms to partners, rakeback players, advertising..etc…. Will we have to request $XX sent to ASP, and $XX sent to the poker client. In my experience, most, if not all affiliate departments dont have the ability to manage that on any scale.
I have a full time CPA on staff who spends a majority of their time tracking and following the money we make on our handful of accounts. Did the AP wire hit, did (edit) come into the offshore account, etc……ASP could definately alleviate a lot of this unecessary work we all have to deal with, you have a strong voice in me to help your cause!!! GL
CC
January 10th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
US affiliates need to fill out a foreign bank account form. nbd, just be aware
January 11th, 2008 at 11:31 am
This would be a great solution as long as all the programs are on board. That is where the challenge will happen, but considering the amount we get screwed when it comes to converting checks, and waiting for payments to a player account (where they make it difficult to get the money out), this is almost a no brainer for all affiliates to support.
Good luck with this Jeremy!
January 11th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Hopefully it will have some good conversion rates. Because not all of us live in the US :p Chris was asking about how the different currencies will handled. This will definitely be one of the main selling points for me.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think AMs really care.
January 13th, 2008 at 4:25 am
A nice list of all the AM’s emails and contact info would be a very useful section on PAP-
January 14th, 2008 at 8:24 am
holyman,
Usually if you need one in particular if you make a post someone can give it to you.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
There have been some questions about currency.
Please note that although currently the accounts are USD the service is available and designed for Affiliates world wide.
Currently using the card to transfer cash into another currency you will receive the wholesale exchange rate, meaning the cost of conversion will be much lower than high street banks.
ASP will also be introducing other currency accounts to all its customers in the near future.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Thanks for answering some of the questions ASP.
Will there be an affiliate program for ASP?
I’m definitely going to sign up and right a review on the process and what I think of it.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I don’t think an affiliate program is in the cards right now. However as the popularity grows, many affiliates will be searching for various speedpay searches in Google.
You could probably grab some sub-affiliate sign ups by writing a decent review and ranking for these terms. Both PAP and this blog get SERP traffic for speedpay terms.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Yeah perfect. Thanks for the heads up.
So in the future, when ASP is pulling a lot of weight, you can see the need for an affiliate program?
January 15th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Yes certainly an affiliate program could be introduced, it would just be tough deciding how to pay when bringing in affiliates. Plus the rooms will be doing this anyways.
As people have mentioned they want the fees to be low for transferring for money, so that would not leave a lot for affiliates.
Now, If you would be interested in referring operators to us, I would rather structure that as a business deal and pay you accordingly.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Thanks for the answers.
I’m surprised how many people think the fees are to high! Maybe its because I have a banking background or I’m use to the fees that Sportsbooks charge for transactions. But really, I don’t think the fees are anything to complain about!
January 16th, 2008 at 8:15 am
I think speedpay is a great solution. The problem is that many people in the U.S. are used to doing their banking at the corner Chase Bank or Bank of America and have never banked Internationally or movedmoney International.
I doubt you will hear any of the bigger affiliates complaining about even having to pay $6 to get 10 $100 bills from an ATM machine the same day they are paid. I have been banking internationally for 2 years now, and the fees some people are complaining about are actually quite reasonable.
It kind of shocks me too that some affiliates are complaining over nickels and dimes considering how much money we make compared to other affiliate industries.
If an extra $5 or $10 a month to get your money faster is too much, the don’t sign up for Speedpay. For me though, it is worth it.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I wanted to respond to Aden about having “2 debit cards per account? “or whether “ASP account to ASP account transfers allowed?”
ASP is currently working on new exciting features which will be made available over the coming months and we are currently looking into this idea.
We will keep you posted, thanks for the great feedback.
January 20th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I am looking forward to their booth at CAP Euro. To be honest, I am stil holding off on investigating into it further until I know more programs are on board, but cap euro will give me a chance to learn a bit more about it.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Thanks for the reply ASP. Will look forward to the new features.
Yeah I would also be looking forward to the ASP booth if I was going Graham. The Lamborghini and those couple of hot chicks will be awesome.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:04 am
I signed up for ASP today because I cant wait the two weeks for a poker room to process payment and for me to receive it through the mail, than add the additional 30 day hold my bank places on all cheques that are from the US or abroad.
What makes it a little more comforting was to see a customer service center located in Canada…just a couple hours from me..