Paypal (Ebay) - $US Balances- in Canada

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

...

Can you not just link a USD$ account to PayPal and do a direct no-exchange withdrawal to the bank account?

They might not allow USD$ accounts from Canadian banks, but I don't see why they wouldn't allow a CAD$ account from a Canadian bank and a USD$ account from an American bank. This would obviously be the least inconvenient for people straddling the US-Canada border and can easily cross over to visit a branch and withdraw cash as needed.

Brent is on the right track here.

As a former insider with TD Canada Trust and someone who has accomplished what you want to accomplish I may also be able to shed some light on this for you.

You need to set up a USD denominated account at a Bank in the USA. I drove to Calais Maine to do mine. It is all but impossible to do the setup on the phone/fax since 9/11. Identity checks are more involved now. Do not select just any USA bank, choose one that knows of Paypal and understands why you are opening the account. Some are very back woods so not all are equal.

Paypal will accept this form of account and you can then withdraw to the account without conversion fees. Once the money is in your USA account you can then wire it to your CDN account from time to time or you can withdraw it using an Interac card. Another option is to write yourself a cheque, drawn on your USA USD account and also have a USD account set up here in Canada and just deposit the proceeds into that account.

Please let me know if you have any more questions on this topic.

As an aside, if you "receive" at least $3000 a month on average in your paypal account you should apply for their merchant rate, which is 2.5%.

Thanks
Troy.

Right now, Paypal is only paid in Canadian dollars to a Canadian account. Paypal converts the US dollar amount at their rate, without options.

If a person has a US account in a Canadian bank, it will not be placed there. If a Canadian has an account in the US bank, he needs a primary address in the US to get deposits from Paypal.

Rick

Hudson,

To achieve what you want to achieve (as indicated in your initial post) refer to my last post. You wanted a way to get US balances from Paypal without having to exchange it to CDN$. I provided clear instructions on how to get this done and tips on how to create a paypal relationship which is more favorable to you.

The last sentence of the post right above this one by rscoins is not correct. You do not need a US address to get funds from paypal as you requested. All you need is a USD Bank account from a USA based bank. Many, many US based banks will glady give you an account with your CDN address so long as you meet their identity checks. (You will almost be certainly asked to complete a W-8 form as well <minor detail>. Look it up online if you want to know what this is). Nor does paypal require you to have a USA address. What they (Paypal) does require is the name of your USA Bank and the digits on the bottom of your check (ask for counter checks when you set up your account).

Once the funds are in your USA based USD account you can then bring them into Canada via the various methods I outlined for you in my last post.

I will however take advantage of this additional post by saying that I do not recommend withdrawing the USA based USD balance in cash and trying to cross the border with it if it accumulates to an amount greater than $10,000. There are customs & CDN bank money laundering protocols which will be triggered. This applies only to cash.

It is best to simply write yourself a cheque from your newly created USA USD account and deposit it into a CDN Based USD account. Using this method no flags within the banks will be triggered.

I would ever so gently request that anyone who posts a follow up to this please know what you are talking about before you do. We were being asked to educate and as such offering information is assuming the role of an educator.

Thanks.
Troy.

rscoins is right I have a US account with the Royal Bank but ebay will not let me use this account for paypal

Note: You do not have to have a US Primary Address... but a USD account from a Canadian bank won't work.

...

Hudson,

Thank you for saving me the trouble of having to correct docstrange as well to ensure that the false statements ended for your benefit and the benefit of those who wanted a "How To Guide" on how to get this done. It is clear that surface deep knowledge is plentiful on this topic.

Of course a US$ account at a Canadian won't work as Brent said. As I have already said at length You need both a US$ account at a US Bank for Paypal and a US$ account at a CDN Bank IF you want to transfer your money into Canada without paypal involvement (strictly bank to bank, this 2nd bank account will have no association with your paypal account and exists merely to receive incoming funds from your USA US$ account) without exchanging currencies IF you want to bring your US currency balance back to Canadian soil.

The w-8 form is precisely what you need to have completed now because you do not have a social security number, no tax return will have to be filed then.  It's a piece of cake and can be completed in a few minutes flat and is available from the bank you have selected in the USA.

I have a deep understanding of this issue having worked with Paypal on many levels since they opened and having worked within both the banking industry and the financial e-commerce sector directly dealing with very complex B2P , P2B and B2B online financial transactions.  I have also maintained contact from time to time with some of the former executives of Paypal, those who were there before it was sold to eBay for approx $1.4B.  In a part time role as eBay's only platinum powerseller dedicated to Canadian Paper Money I also process 5 figure sums back and forth through paypal every single month.  In addition I also stated when I introduced myself on this topic that I had personally accomplished what you wanted to accomplish and was speaking as someone with both expertise and direct experience.  I was hoping that this information would have been more easily received, I was starting to wonder if I needed to beg Peter T. or Roelef B. to come over here to make a celebrity guest appearance. (If you don't know who they are, research Paypal's extraordinary evolution starting with Elon M., who is now sending rockets to Mars at SpaceX).

As for me, class is over, I'm out!

Troy.

The solution offered requires an account in a US bank, located in the US, that will transferr US dollars into an account at a Canadian bank. I have a US social security number, and even with all that, it is a long way to the US to open a bank account.

What is being offered is simply not feasible to the average user of Paypal.

Paypal is one of the worst methods of getting money, with charges, rip-off on the exchange rate, and their famous clawback problems.

I truly wish a real bank would get involved in a big way, to offer some competition to eBay's little brother.

Rick

Thanks for restating the clearly obvious and previously stated only solution that I presented to Hudsons problem.

The setup is very easy once you are at a USA bank in person or if you find a bank that will in fact set up an account over the phone/fax, they are scarce however these days. The structure to maintain is very easy and I would recommend it not for the average user but rather anyone who is a fairly frequent to frequent seller who wishes to achieve what Hudson wanted to achieve. Or anyone who is fee sensitive and wants to save as Hudson did.

Nearly all to all US based US$ accounts held at US Banks will "transfer" to a CDN acct via a simple instrument called a cheque that you can write to yourself and deposit into a CDN based account anytime you like.

I can assure you that there are some very real banks involved through Paypal "in a big way", including Wells Fargo.

I however agree that there is room for massive improvement & competition in the epayment industry.

If there is anything else you would like to know about this problem and solution please let me know. I would be delighted to explain any part of this in far greater detail than I already have.

Troy

More sellers should just open up to e-mail money transfers. Cost is zero and no third party problems interference.

Agreed,

Partial solution only however; useful for transactions between two parties who maintain CDN bank accounts, not useful for one party who maintains a USA bank account and the other maintains a Canadian based account.

The system also has its transactional dollar volume limitations which are quite frustrating.

Certapay (founders of the technology) who underpins the CDN email money transfer system still does not support USA transfers the last time I checked. But the next time I speak to Zack F. who founded Certapay I will check on this. He moved on to a Director Level Position at Visa; the last time I conferenced with him was in early '04 however. I have been taking some time off since leaving the industry and haven't stayed in touch as frequently as I did from 2000 - early 2004.

He will have some insight on where the system is trending for growth and when it will support USA transactions.

Troy.

A real bank in Canada is not a foreign bank, but one that is part of our banking system.
Like The Royal, CIBC, BofM etc.

Wells Fargo is a foreign bank. Paypal operates as if Canada is a third world country, and indeed it actually thinks it is a bank of some sort.

Perhaps a good method for accepting Visa on eBay accounts similar to that employed by Gatewest.

I would love to see the major banks in Canada offer a similar method as Paypal currently does.


Rick

Such a system does exist for Canadians but it is not as robust as Paypal.

The closest is the CDN Interac email money transfer system offered by the major banks. It was pioneered by Certapay and has similarities to paypal.

That is what was discussed right above your post.

You could maintain your own merchant account for online payments, there is a lot to discuss on this topic with risk/fraud and reserve account balances imposed by the underwriting merchant bank being among the most important/obvious business drawbacks.

There are pluses but this is a very rich topic that requires a very deep understanding before you can be sure you have made the right decision for your online business.

I am personally not into Paypal bashing, they have done amazing things to accelerate the growth of worldwide online commerce which I have personally benefited from greatly. They are far from perfect, and have done very questionable things, and it is sometimes difficult for non insiders to understand why but I would rather have them than not have them, that is for certain.

Also when you said you wished a real bank would get involved in the Paypal market-space you did not specify you meant a Canadian Bank (as you now say), that is why I informed you that Wells Fargo is the underwriting merchant bank for Paypal and they support them enormously. With a Market Capitalizaton of just over 100 Billion US (approx 3x larger than the Royal Bank of Canada, and approx 5x larger than The Bank of Montreal) they certainly qualify as a "real bank".

I will also share with you that an extremely well funded Citibank subsiduary tried to enter Paypal's market space and was smashed to pieces by Paypal's market dominance. http://www.c2it.com/  

The only 3 substantial threats to paypals amazing rise have been 1) Would eBay refuse Paypal payments on their platform and build one of their own by building on BillPoint/eBay Payments or buy Paypal? (the answer to that is of course they bought them); critical question given that historically well over 50% of Paypal revenue has been generated by transactions that originated on eBay.  2) Regulatory bodies (includes governments & credit card companies  3) controlling fraud/chargebacks and being able to turn out a net profit at the end of the day in light of these metrics. They discovered maintaining a fraud rate under 0.40% was essential to profitable operations. This was achieved through investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in the creation and continual evolution of IGOR, which is paypals proprietary software "eye in the sky" or "big brother" and named after the guy who caused them trouble in the early days.

Thanks for making this a little more interesting now. I was getting bored by repeating myself to ensure it was sinking in and to drive away false information on this important topic.

Troy