POLi is, in many ways, the de facto option for players to deposit and withdraw at online casinos in New Zealand. In fact, this shouldn’t surprise anyone, considering that the banking option is almost exclusively available to Australians and New Zealanders. If you’re based in that neck of the woods and have processed online payments, you’re likely already familiar with it. If not, don’t worry – we’ll explain everything you need to know right here.
POLi Explained
Launched in 2006, POLi has provided Australian and New Zealand players with one of the safest ways to process payments online. Moreover, unlike some of the other options you’ll come across, POLi is tailored almost exclusively towards players in Oceania. POLi is a payment processor affiliated with AU and NZ banks, and it acts as a money transfer system between those banks and a retailer, in this case, New Zealand online casinos.
POLi is predominantly used via your device’s web browsers. However, in recent years, it has become common for POLi to be available for iOS and Android use, namely as an app. To process any POLi transaction, you must have an account at a New Zealand (or Australian) bank that is affiliated with this payment provider. Basically, any official and large bank in New Zealand should do the job nicely.
This payment method appears frequently enough at offshore New Zealand online casinos, so you certainly shouldn’t have any issue coming across somewhere that accepts it. Moreover, using POLi is less demanding in terms of regulatory requirements than using PayID, another bank-based payment app and a rival. Of course, if you’re not familiar with POLi, you need to know how it works, and we’ll explain that next.
Deposit Process
Since POLi is a bank transfer service, you aren’t required to have a POLi account. You need an account with an applicable and affiliated bank, though. If that’s no problem, you can then select POLi as your preferred payment option via your New Zealand casino’s banking screen. From there on out, here’s what you need to do:
- When you select POLi, you’ll be redirected to POLI’s page, where you can choose the bank associated with your account.
- On the next screen, you’ll get to enter the relevant details, including the amount you wish to deposit.
- Finally, you’ll need to confirm the POLi transaction using two-factor authentication. This means using either the app or the browser confirmation system, or whatever works for you.
- Once the transaction is confirmed, POLi will immediately take the funds from your bank and deposit them into your casino account.
Withdrawal Process
While many other intermediary bank transfer services won’t allow you to process payments both ways, POLi does. In short, you can expect to both deposit and withdraw using this NZ-friendly payment option at online casinos. The banking option can be selected on the casino cashier screen just as easily as when you make a deposit. This time, though, you’ll be requesting to withdraw funds using the process, and you can select your bank from the options available in the drop-down menu on the second screen.
Fees and Limits
It may surprise you to learn that a NZ-specific payment option such as POLi has fees. Well, it does – but on the upside, they are incredibly low. POLi won’t charge you a dime for depositing at online casinos. However, if you wish to withdraw, you can expect the payment provider (crucially, not the casino) to hit you with fees of $0.30, rising to 0.9% of the total sum. POLi has fairly generous limits associated with it – they certainly won’t put you off using the payment provider. Most casinos have minimum deposit and withdrawal limits that start at around $5/$20, but some may ask that you withdraw at least fifty bucks. At the upper end, expect to see caps ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 for deposits and often withdrawals.
Transaction Times
POLi can process deposits into your online casino account within seconds, certainly no longer than a few minutes. Regarding New Zealand casino withdrawals, things are a little slower. It can take three to five days for NZ casinos to process your POLi withdrawals. On the upside, those withdrawals will go directly into your bank. If you factor in the time it usually takes to withdraw via an e-wallet and then move those funds to your bank, you’re looking at roughly the same timeframe.
Why Use POLi at Online Casinos in New Zealand?
The biggest perk to using POLi to deposit at internet casinos in New Zealand is that you won’t be required to divulge your bank account details to casinos. That is exceptionally handy when many of those catering to New Zealanders are offshore. The fact that POLi is also Aussie and New Zealander-centric means that you’re guaranteed to be able to deposit and withdraw using the New Zealand dollar without any currency conversion fees or other charges.