For those of us who deal with freelance foreign clients, I've heard of this company from clients, but can't figure out why it's not allowed in the United States. The reason I ask is that they advertise that they are in 200 countries - yet aren't in the largest economy in the world? That makes very little sense.
Just as a comparison, when I tried to sign up in the US, it gave me a warning that it wasn't available, yet when I choose China or Venezuela - communist countries - it's fine.
according to their client services it is a licensing issue: Thread: OKpay didn't Accept USA clients? They do not elaborate but do suggest that they don't plan to fix that issue.
The U.S. requires money transfer services to be licensed under 31 USC 5330 in addition to any applicable laws at the state level. According to multiple sources online, including the thread referenced by MD-Tech's answer, OkPay either cannot or will not get a license, so they are out.
I dug on this a bit more because I thought it was interesting, and OkPay has other issues with U.S. and other regulators related to its interaction with Bitcoins, which themselves are a hot potato for regulation right now and may explain the licensing problem. It seems to also be facing regulatory pressure in other countries, by the way, so it's not strictly a problem they face in the U.S. Just for whatever reason, the problem is greater here. Some interesting summary points:
With mounting pressure on online money exchanges from US regulators, payments processor OKPay has announced that it is suspending processing for all Bitcoin exchanges, including industry leader Mt. Gox.
...
Earlier this month, the US Department of Homeland Security seized Mt. Gox's account with mobile payment processor Dwolla, on allegations that the account was in violation of US Code 18 USC ยง 1960 by operating an "unlicensed money transmitting business."
Just where the Bitcoin market falls under US law is unclear, because the legality of Bitcoin transactions has yet to be tried in court and law enforcement has refused to comment on ongoing investigations, such as the Dwolla case.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/29/okpay_suspends_bitcoin_processing/
In March, the US Treasury said any firms dealing in the virtual currency would be considered "money services businesses" just like any other, which means they must hand over transaction information to the government and work to prevent money laundering.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/15/mt_gox_us_court/
In the UK, it apparently has also had trouble with banking partners (quoting a OkPay official regarding changing bank providers):
The UK bank that we used before did not make a final decision on whether to handle transactions in favour of crypto-currencies or not. Therefore the compliance department of the bank asked us to restrict such transfers.
This apparently allowed them to reverse a policy in the UK:
OKPAY's policy shift comes just months after it stipulated that GBP users check a box, verifying that their funds would not be spent on cryptocurrency, a feature that further incited users.
http://www.coindesk.com/okpay-gbp-bitcoin-transactions/
I hadn't heard of this company prior to your question, but having done some research, I tend to think that at least the part of this quote about language, attributed to a user, is true:
OKPAY are quite paranoid about AML and another problem is that their support people seem to be very bad at English, so their replies are often hard to understand. Their support are also slow [sic]. However in my experience they are an honest company.
I found at least one case where rumors that the entire company were going to shut down were traced back to a poorly translated message issued by the company.
Again, I know only what I read just now about this company, but it looked like there were a few red flags - the problems with the US probably not being the most important. This type of service is probably part of the future, but I'm not sure that I'd send money through it now in its current state or organization and regulation.
If you read the link that MD-Tech provided, it actually indicates that the foreign companies (mostly banks) are choosing not to work with the United States in their latest answer, so it looks like it's not OkPay, but the financial companies that they use.
On further research, the reason that this is banned is to prevent capital flight in the future. OkPay offers may ways to transfer funds in and out, such as traditional credit cards, like VISA and MasterCard, and other non-traditional ways, such as crypto-coins.
Here is another example of how the US government is limiting what US consumers can do with their money. Apparently while no one was looking in 2010, they were able to pass some new restrictions.
Here's the real reason OKPay (actually the banks they interface with) won't accept US Citizens.
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010 without much fanfare. One reason the act was so quiet was its four-year long ramp up; FATCA did not really take effect until 2014. Never before had a single national government attempted, and so far succeeded in, forcing compliance standards on banks across the world.
FATCA requires any non-U.S. bank to report accounts held by American citizens worth over $50,000 or else be subject to 30% withholding penalties and possible exclusion from U.S. markets. By mid-2015, more than 100,000 foreign entities had agreed to share financial information with the IRS. Even Russia and China agreed to FATCA. The only major global economy to fight the Feds is Canada; however it was private citizens, not the Canadian government, who filed suit to block FATCA under the International Governmental Agreement clause making it illegal to turn over private bank account information.
Read more: The Tax Implications of Opening a Foreign Bank Account | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/102915/tax-implications-opening-foreign-bank-account.asp#ixzz4TzEck9Yo Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook
