About the desk
Who runs SettleDesk, and how
SettleDesk exists because the gap between "you made a sale abroad" and "the money is usable in your local bank" is full of avoidable losses, and almost nobody explains it from the seller's side. We try to.
Who we are
We're a small editorial desk of people who ran cross-border e-commerce ourselves (Amazon FBA, an independent Shopify store, and a stretch of POD and dropshipping) across exactly the kind of markets we now write about. We spent years losing money to FX margins we didn't understand and an account freeze we didn't see coming. This site is the reference we wish we'd had.
We're an editorial team, not a single guru, and we don't pretend otherwise. Guides are written and reviewed collectively and published under "the SettleDesk desk." We're happy to answer specific questions at gzs035@getsettledesk.com.
What we are not
We are not a bank, a broker, a payment provider, or a licensed financial adviser. Nothing on this site is financial, tax, legal or investment advice. For decisions specific to your business, talk to a qualified professional in your country.
How we research
- Primary sources first. Fees, policies and rules come from providers' own pages, regulators, and official documentation, not from other blogs. Where we cite a figure that matters, we link it.
- We test what we can. Where it's practical, we run real transfers and reconcile what actually landed against what was promised. The worked examples in our guides come from that habit.
- We mark dates. Every guide carries a "checked" date, and we note the year on time-sensitive figures. Payout policies and FX rates change constantly.
- We review quarterly. Core guides get a scheduled re-check. If something's changed, we update the page and the date; we don't quietly let figures rot.
- We say when we're unsure. Ranges are presented as ranges. "Indicative" means indicative. We'd rather be honestly approximate than falsely precise.
The boundary we won't cross
This is a payments and settlement site, not an investing site. We explain how to move and convert money you've already earned. We do not predict currency or crypto prices, recommend assets to hold for gain, promise returns, or coach speculation. When a guide mentions a crypto exchange, it's strictly as a tool for the convert step, with its risks stated plainly, never as an investment.
Referral links and commission
Start with what a referral link cannot buy here: a verdict. If a platform we carry a link for is the wrong tool for a job, we write that it is the wrong tool, in the same paragraph that names it. Everything below describes what the site actually does, and matches the code as of November 2026.
- Every placement carrying our invite code or a referral link is labelled "Referral", and appears inside a real comparison alongside its genuine drawbacks. No silent endorsements.
- OKX is currently the only exchange we carry a referral link for, positioned strictly as one tool for the convert step after a payout. It is not an asset we suggest holding, and we make no price predictions.
- The whole site carries three referral links, all of them OKX sign-up links carrying invite code
OK99688: one in English, on the invite-code card at the top of the English home page; two in Chinese, one on the invite-code card at the top of the Chinese home page and one on the card at the top of the Chinese OKX account-opening walkthrough. The nav, footer, fee tables, every other guide, the market pages, the freeze playbook, the KYC guide, listings and the 404 carry none; a few guides mention the invite code as plain text in their convert-step section, with no link. - Those links are plain in-page links to okx.com. There is no interstitial, no exit page and no page of ours in between; no meta refresh and no JavaScript redirect. Markup is
rel="nofollow sponsored noopener noreferrer"withtarget="_blank". - For you: signing up through these links or with the code gets up to 20% off trading fees; the exact conditions are set by the exchange.
- For us: this site may earn a commission. When someone who signed up through our invite trades, OKX may pay us a share of trading fees under its affiliate terms at the time. It costs you nothing extra and moves no number in the fee tables.
If we ever can't be honest about a platform we link to, we'll drop the link before we drop the honesty.
Safety & anti-scam stance
A recurring theme across our guides: the cheapest-looking shortcut is often the most expensive. We actively warn against no-KYC repatriation schemes, "street rate" FX deals, fake account-recovery agents, and anyone promising guaranteed returns on held balances. Real settlement is documented, KYC-compliant, and a little boring. That's the point.
Corrections & contact
Spotted a fee that's out of date or a rule we got wrong? Tell us, we'd rather fix it than defend it. Email gzs035@getsettledesk.com with the page and the detail, and we'll review it against the primary source.