BY TOM SOMACH

There’s a new e-wallet on the scene but it’s going to be a while before most online poker players can use it.

That’s because YouTeller, an Internet money-transferring service or so-called “e-wallet” that just debuted, is limiting just who can sign up and use it to electronically transfer funds.

YouTeller (www.youteller.com) is the creation of London technology company Seed Capital Ltd. and is expected to fill some of the void that was left when another U.K.-based e-wallet, NETeller (www.neteller.com), last month suspended most of its business.

Online poker players and other online gamblers use e-wallets as third-party processors to send monies from their personal bank accounts to online betting sites so they can gamble. They reverse the process to collect winnings.

New YouTeller customers will be able to sign up for a YouTeller account only at the invitation of an existing customer, said Seed spokesman Florian Schweitzer.

“Our servers could not handle the traffic if we open our doors for a public sign-up,” he said. “It is our first priority to provide our customers with stable service and reliable support.”

Next month, YouTeller will invite a thousand customers, who signed up during a pre-registration period, to join the e-wallet, Schweitzer said.

Public account registration is not planned within the next few months, he said.

In an effort to prevent YouTeller from being used by terrorists to transfer massive amounts of funds worldwide, YouTeller is limiting the amount of money one can electronically transfer at a time, as well as the amount of money one can have in a YouTeller account, Schweitzer said.

The transaction limit and the account limit are both 150 euros, he said.

A euro, the unit of money used by the European Union (EU), is generally worth around one U.S. dollar.

YouTeller wants to be “not interesting for terrorists or other criminals,” according to Schweitzer.

“Our target group are people who play community-oriented online games like poker, chess or role-playing games–people who need instant and worldwide payment processing.” Schweitzer said.