Online crowdsourcing marketplace Freelancer.com has secured regulatory approval to offer transaction services in Australian dollars through its global custodial payments arm. The ASX-listed company is already one of the leading international players in custodial payments through its wholly owned subsidiary Escrow.com, which currently operates in Euros and American dollars.Escrow.com, a Californian-based company, specialises in facilitating high-value online transactions such as car purchases through strategic alliances with eBay, Google and Snapchat. The business operates as a payments assurance and clearance service to vendors and buyers interacting online.Freelancer.com acquired the escrow services business in 2015 to provide payments assurance to freelance IT workers contracting remotely with technology companies through its job auction platform. Escrow.com receives funds from job hirers in advance of a payment deadline but holds the money in trust until it receives confirmation that work has been completed.Freelance workers are able to view the escrowed funds in their Escrow.com accounts before the prescribed tasks are delivered.Online car sales is one of the company's fastest-growing segments in the United States where buyers are able to test drive automobiles after submitting funds to an escrow account. The funds are only released to the vendor after the buyer confirms they are satisfied with the vehicle's performance.Escrow.com chief executive Jackson Elsegood expects the addition of an Australia dollar capability to remove significant barriers to high-value domestic ecommerce. "We have been able to provide services to Australian subscribers for many years but those payments transactions have been complicated sometimes by the fact that our trading currencies are US dollars and Euros," he said."We see potential for our escrow service to give Australian online vendors and buyers of big-ticket luxury goods and services more confidence about transacting online."Escrow.com levies a flat rate fee of almost one per cent on each transaction it administers.Elsegood says the company receives a $286 fee on a $30,000 car sale, making it a cheaper mode of payment than PayPal, which would usually impose fees and charges of almost 3 per cent on such a transaction.All transactions completed through Escrow.com are irreversible, with buyers having no recourse to chargebacks after they instruct the service to release funds to the vendor. The business could have a transformational effect on the way high value service contracts are executed in Australia, particularly in the home building and renovations markets.While the business model threatens to disintermediate incumbent payments providers, it also could undermine the role of legal professionals who have traditionally collected high fees for drafting escrow contracts."We offer an off-the-shelf service that is a lot faster and much cheaper," said Elsegood.While the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has already issued the company with a financial services licence to administer local payments, Elsegood said the company would launch the new capability in the second half of the year."We still need to make a few changes to the front end of the escrow.com website before Australian currency transactions can be enabled," he said.Escrow.com currently confirms transactions going through its global platform from processing centres in California and