Because of protective banking regulations and other financial and legal hurdles, many companies which offer legitimate banking options for online casinos, sportsbooks and poker rooms have a tough time offering their customers traditional banking options. But recently Ukash, a prepaid electronic cash and commerce brand in the United Kingdom that is a favorite of online poker players for opening and funding Internet casino accounts, has added a handy feature that has up until now only been offered by a very small number of Internet payment processors … physical cash withdrawals.
Online poker players in the UK can now head to more than 24,000 physical locations and withdraw money from their Internet poker accounts funded by e-wallet Ukash. The company inked a major deal with retail payment network PayPoint which enables their customers to withdraw cash from their Ukash account at brick-and-mortar banking locations and kiosks which honor PayPoint. PayPoint is a British company founded in 1996 as a way for UK and Irish customers to pay a limited range of utility company bills. The company has gone on to offer other payment acceptance and processing services, and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Up until now Ukash customers, which include a substantial number of online poker players in the UK, could only make deposits using the company’s online Web portal. A poker player with a Ukash account would electronically use one of their traditional banking account options to send money to the Ukash website. Online casinos like the Grand Hotel and Vegas Seven honor Ukash as a deposit method for opening an account, and in this way Ukash acts as a protective layer between a UK resident’s traditional banking structure and an online casino. We predict this substantial announcement will see other major payment processers on the World Wide Web expand their offerings to physical pay locations in the near future as well.
Now that the physical payment processing locations will be available to Ukash account holders, poker players will be able to make deposits as well as withdrawals at the thousands of physical PayPoint outlets. Ukash works a little differently than some other online casino and poker room deposit methods, by selling unique 19 digit codes that transfer money from your preferred banking payment method through Ukash and on to online poker rooms and other Internet sites. No sensitive personal information is ever revealed when using Ukash, and in this way the system has become popular as an anonymous deposit method that insulates your personal banking from your Internet activity.
Even in this day of powerful data encryption and multiple layers of virtual protection, some online poker players and other purchasers of Internet products and services still prefer a shield to protect their sensitive personal and financial information. Ukash has become a popular deposit method among poker players, and online payment processing options among non-gamblers in the UK, for just this reason. Adding brick-and-mortar withdrawals to thousands of locations across the UK and Ireland should not only appeal to the end-user, but should also add a significant number of online retailers and online casinos who will be jumping on board to offer the Ukash service.
