Linden Lab have published two very important blog posts in the last couple of days, one regarding changes to LindeX processing fees and one regarding account security issues.
I’ll post about the unpopular issue first, Linden Lab have announced that there will soon be Updates to LindeX and Credit Processing Fees. This will result in increases to fees in some areas, which, the blog post tells us, will result in the following changes :
- The fee for purchasing L$ on the LindeX will increase from $0.40 (USD) to $0.60 (USD) per transaction.
- The fee structure for process credit transactions (i.e. paying real money into PayPal or Skrill accounts) will remain as a 1.5% fee with a $3 (USD) minimum, but the maximum fee per transaction will increase from $15 (USD) to $25 (USD).
This means that there will be fee increases for those purchasing Linden Dollars and for some who sell higher volumes of Linden Dollars.
The blog post points out that last year, Second Life users processed credit of USD$60m, which is a pretty impressive amount for a platform that is about to celebrate its 14th birthday, but the ability to buy and sell Linden Dollars for real money has to comply with laws and regulations to prevent fraud and money laundering, amongst other challenges.
The blog post explains :
Underlying SL’s successful user-to-user L$ economy and the ability to buy and sell L$’s for real currency is a significant amount of ongoing work to ensure that everything remains compliant with applicable laws and regulations, while also preventing fraud and money laundering.
Investing in improvements to these processes and the ongoing compliance work required comes at a cost to Linden Lab, and we will be making some LindeX fee adjustments in order to share a portion of those costs with Residents active in the SL economy.
Whereas increases in fees are never welcome, the regulations associated with such transactions are likely to become more stringent as virtual transactions gain popularity amongst various platforms and that means increased costs for companies such as Linden Lab who are processing these transactions.
Continue reading “Linden Lab Announce Changes To Lindex Processing Fees and Issue Account Security Warnings”
