Let me officially confirm that Malaysians can indeed accept PayPal withdrawals into Malaysian VISA credit card.
Boy, was that fast! Imagine that I did my PayPal withdrawal request on October 3, PayPal completed it on October 4, and Citibank cleared the withdrawal by October 6, making it 4 days tops! I’m telling you, my heart is filled with angels singing praises to God right now, I am so elated!
After this wonderful ordeal, here are a few info and tips I know so far that you may find useful:
- I do NOT see any fee charged to my credit card by either VISA or Citibank. This means that the 1% VISA + 1% Citibank fee I was expecting is NOT applicable to foreign funds deposited to Citibank; the fee only applies to spending transactions. In total, the fees and charges I have to bear is only the USD5 that PayPal charges.
- Remember that MYR rate against USD is determined through a managed float, meaning that the currency rate fluctuates based on market demand, although not so much due to Bank Negara Malaysia’s intervention now and then. If I remember what I heard through the radio correctly, BNM (Malaysia’s version of the Federal Reserve Bank) will ensure that MYR against USD will fluctuate by no more than 8% against the rate BNM originally pegs, which is RM3.48. In other words, withdraw your PayPal funds when USD is strong, so you get more of your money’s worth.
VISA determines the currency exchange rate for withdrawals to all VISA cards. You can use its online Currency Converter to check the prevailing rate for MYR versus USD, and then do your math from there. When I checked the rate October 4, it was USD1 = MYR3.45. On October 5, it was USD1 = MYR3.41. You notice the difference as well if you take a closer look at the PayPal Expanded Use charge in my Citibank statement.- If you haven’t already, read all about PayPal’s New Withdrawal Feature to VISA Credit Card here.
- [EDIT] PayPal withdrawals are NOT considered credit card payment, but rather as an additional fund. This means that you still have to make your minimum monthly payment, silly. What? You think you got off easy with that?
- [EDIT] Gosh, I wished I had saved that URL, but I read somewhere that once you reach a negative limit in your credit card (i.e. you pay more than you spend), you can request the credit card issuer to transfer the excess into a bank account of your choice (I swear I read that in the Citibank web site, but I’ll have to double check).
- As I have shared in Wayne Liew’s and Gaman’s post, I found a slightly alarming piece of info from LiewFC’s comments (defunct link removed) which Public Bank Visa Electron users may not like:
–
vincent Says:
December 9th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Got this reply from PB customer service today
1. You are not allow to bank in foreign funds in foreign currency to the Visa Electron Card account. The card account only can accept funds in Ringgit Malaysia.
–
This MAY mean that PB Visa Electron users could not accept foreign deposits such as those by PayPal because the funds are paid in USD. I hope I’m wrong, and since that comment was done back in 2006, Public Bank may have changed its policy since. My prayers are with you 😉
[UPDATE 8/Oct/2007] I’m never been glad I was wrong about anything as I am now! Malcolm successfully had his funds transferred into his PB VISA Electron debit card (defunct link removed), although I noticed that the exchange rate was significantly lower. For Oct 8, the rate was RM 3.40 per USD, but Malcolm got RM 3.36 per USD. Did Public Bank make any hidden charges on the transfer? If there was, it wasn’t apparent in Malcolm’s statement screen shot.
So there you go. I’ll make sure to spread this around, and I hope you’ll help me spread the good news too. Until then, here’s WebGrrrl.net happily reporting on the whole hoopla that is PayPal Withdraw to Credit Card feature, signing off, for now.
UPDATE: Pikey beat me to it (defunct link removed), however he received it after a bit of difficulty whereby PayPal limited his account for a while to request Pikey for a faxed proof of his documentation. PayPal didn’t even make a beep when I did my withdrawal.
Check out my other posts: « PayPal withdrawals to credit card update: Completed / Darth Vader Blabberized »
Nice report, I susbscribed to your feed, so we should keep ourselves updated with the USD and MYR currency rate now? 😀
Only what’s published in the VISA online Currency Converter 😀
It seems we are doing international trade 😀
You mean international currency trade? Heheh! Oh no, that’s illegal in PayPal, better not raise any red flags 😀
If you know much about finance, then you may understand about currency arbritrage — I was thinking of doing that with PayPal, and see whether requesting withdrawal in Euro may make me more money, but I’m too busy playing with the kids right now to do any math.
Arbitrage? But how? Putting the money in PayPal account and withdraw when the currency is better off?
I also thinking of one way, that’s turning credit card into cash without paying for cash withdrawal fee by using two PayPal account. 😛
That’s good news! I’ve registered to pay pal through my Citibank Visa credit card also. Lucky there’s no fee or charges involved as you mentioned. Now you got the money.. urgh! you got quiet number of money there.. Aiya, kaya! kaya!
Yeah, the only thing I need to pay now is the cash advance fee of 5% of cash amount (min RM20), and 18% p.a. daily interest *cuts throat*… which is why I’m still on the look out for a VISA debit card.
Oh, that money is just test money — there’s so much more available there, MUAHAHAHAH!!!
So, it’s consider as cash advance? Thanks for sharing 🙂
Yes. Unfortunately 🙁
The USD to GBP (for where I am) has been stuck between 2.008 and 2.040 dollars to the pound. Yet paypal and mastercard both exchange at the far less friendly 1.946 – talk about skimming a share.
I’m not really surprised at that, Lord Matt. It’s almost as if the quoted rate by Mastercard (and PayPal, I’m guessing) is lower by around 1%, same as the foreign transaction % fee imposed by VISA, don’t you think?
I guess you should try out with a debit card so that feel the cash since you can withdraw it. 🙂
Thanks, Wayne, I’ll do that once I see some good news on the PB VISA Debit Card with PayPal withdrawal. I’m keeping an eye on your site for the status.
wah nice nice…congrates for the first withdrawal 🙂 i’ll wait till i get mine 🙂
Good luck with yours!
good news indeed!!
is this for all visa c.card or just city bank? pls enlighten
Deana, it has to be a VISA (for now) and depends on the issuing bank. Citibank VISA definitely works, but we haven’t heard news of CC from other banks. You may want to keep an eye on Wayne Liew’s site as he is trying a few cards himself.
Hi this works for all Visa Card not necessary Citibank. Managed to contact a few sellers who were using Maybank, Public Bank & HSBC Visa Credit Card works. As for Public Bank Visa Electron Debit card, it also worked 🙂 Here’s the person who used it
sukeri
The only downfall is if you withdraw to your credit card, is that when you withdraw funds from the ATM via CC it will consider as cash advance. Maybank charges 5% or RM10 (whichever is higher) for this withdrawal. Best if you can withdraw it to a debit card where you won’t find any problems of additional charges 🙂 Hope this help 🙂
Alex, unfortunately Sukeri is using Public Bank VISA Credit Card, not a VISA Electron debit card.
Yes, as my reply to eshark, I’m aware of the extra charges for my Citibank CC.
Credit cards often won’t have any problem with the withdrawal. The issue now is that as far as I know there are ONLY THREE BANKS in Malaysia that currently issue VISA Electron DEBIT cards: 1) Public Bank (doesn’t require opening a bank account), 2) BSN Matrix (obtained after opening a bank account), and 3) Standard Chartered (after opening a savings – min RM2,000 – or current account – min RM500). Other debit cards are issued by MasterCard.
I got these info from the banks as well as from an article in The Edge, which I shared with 5xmom as well.
If you do have the PB debit card and is using it with PayPal, do share the result, OK?
whoops sorry..gave you the wrong link.. Lol.. My bad..
adesblog
This guy managed to do it..
Alex, Ades has got some very good posts there; thanks for sharing the link, I really appreciate it!
thanks Lorna..will do that..
thanks.lucky i have visa debit card from pb. i have withdraw my paypal money via etrade before. it’s easy but i have lost my password..haha
Lorna, my paypal money is in my hands now through PBB visa debit card. 😀
Congrats! I’m so excited for all of you, and soon for myself!
papajoneh,
how to link your paypal to visa debit card? do i have to go to the bank? call them may be?
Why is it treated as cash advance?
yeah… i also just check my online citibank statement and withdrawal from paypal finally completed. after calculate can get around rate 3.35.
i also double check with citibank to withdraw that amount and they say can request for refund credit. they will post a cheque to your house. the charges only rm2.50 net.
The rate is getting lower unfortunately, due to the weakening of USD against other Asian currencies.
Hey, the info on refund credit is great. Although it’s a tad bit slow to wait for the cheque to arrive in the mail, but at least I won’t have to endure the RM50++ cash advance charges. Thanks for sharing the info.
May I know what Citibank Credit card you are using? Urgently pls.. heheh..
I use Cash Back, but I’m thinking of getting the Cash Ready card as well, easier to withdraw via cheque and ATM.
You can view related articles here
You mean we can’t use the amount we transfer into the credit card to offset our monthly credit card bills?
The amount you transfer from PayPal into your credit card account will be offset, although this offset is not considered as your monthly minimum payment. In other words, you will still have to pay your minimum balance every month, no matter how many times you transfer your PayPal balances into your CC account.
Sorry for the slow response — I seldom read comments from my old posts.
Hi there, great article. I’m in Argentina and can have benefit with this feature too, but was not sure about something: are all withdrawals converted to the local currency? That is, can’t you withdraw the money in US dollars?
cheers,
Paula
Hi Paula. If you choose the default currency, which is USD, to transfer into your CC account, and if the CC account you owned is based on the local currency, your CC issuing bank would almost always convert the PayPal USD amount into your local currency.
Once the CC balance is reflected as the local currency, you will have to withdraw that local currency balance and manually convert the withdrawn cash into USD. Please check with your issuing bank if you need more confirmation.
Hi Lorna, you are really a godsend. I was hunting for a solution to the paypal problem, and the info posted here is good. But I’ve checked with Citibank & Maybank earlier; Citibk said they don’t support paypal; and Maybk have not even heard abt this. Do you know anything about this?
How do you withdraw yr funds from Citibk, if any cash withdrawn is treated as cash advance and subjected to 1.5% interest? I’m confused. Would appreciate yr help.
Jenni, most banks in Malaysia wouldn’t know much about this PayPal thing because the officers don’t do paid blogging, heheh! But trust me on this, the rule is that if your VISA card can be accepted worldwide, chances are your card can also accept PayPal withdrawals into your CC account. So I can guarantee you that Citibank credit cards worked time and time again from my experience, and I’m sure Maybank VISA credit card does, too.
Ah, unfortunately my Citibank Cash Back VISA card does not support cash withdrawals, and I had to switch to its Ready Cash VISA to be able to withdraw. I now use Public Bank VISA debit cards to withdraw my PayPal cash due to its lower bank rates.
I had applied public debit card today and I heard that $5 will be charge when I withdraw cash from ATM machine (Is that true?). Is there any charge if I withdraw cash from public ATM? Can I transfer the cash from debit card to my public bank saving account and withdraw without $5 being charge? Please assist.
Al Rahji is works! I have tried withdrawal from paypal. You can see details at mymerchantonline