This post is a report on my conversation and subsequent investigation of the comments made by M.A Roy of RBC.
1st let me say that both M.A. Roy and I agree that the RBC Centura product offering I previously investigated on the forums behalf is the primary solution and preferred over the next idea which I am going to present which was presented to me by M.A. Roy.
Having said that I wanted to provide you a follow up report on the RBC Centura offering that I have been using for several weeks now. The account is working very well, adding funds to my paypal account and withdrawing from Paypal to my RBC Centura account has worked flawlessly. The undetected (undisclosed by RBC during the sales cycle) drawback (an important one at that) is that you cannot just walk into any RBC branch here in Canada and withdraw from your RBC Centura Account. You will need to write a cheque off your account or wire your funds to their intended end destination. They do provide “in branch” set up of the account initially as I witnessed but all further transactions are done either online or over the phone with RBC Centura Reps in the USA. I have simply written cheques on my account to work around this lack of local in branch service. I will also remind you that their online banking offering is very competitive and is complimentary with the account. I have also found their telephone banking to be quite competitive as well.
Now having said that let me present a simple alternative that allegedly (by M.A. Roy) is suitable for those who seek only to withdraw their US$ balances from Paypal into a Canadian based US$ account, yup that is correct. You will cry “wait the Paypal software will not accept a Canada based US$ account"..well with RBC’s help I have learned a secret work around.
It goes like this:
First go into your Paypal account and then click on “Profile”, next then click on “Bank Accounts” under the financial information section. Now on this “Bank Account” screen on your bottom right is an “add” button, click it. Now on this “add a bank account” screen select USA as the country. On the next screen where it asks you to add a bank account in the USA enter:
Routing Number: 026004093
Account Number: XXXXXXXXXXXX (5 digits transit) + (7 digits account number) – You must already have a traditional US$ Canadian based RBC account for this to work.
Now you will note from the paypal screen check sample they assume your account number is 10 digits, however the software will accept account numbers of varying length.
Apparently RBC and JP Morgan in the USA have a relationship in place via the routing number presented above. This routing number allows the transaction to stay in US$ all the way to your Canadian Based US$ account.
Now here is the deal, I am told by M.A. Roy that you can withdraw your paypal balance to your RBC account this way but you cannot do the reverse, you cannot add funds to your paypal account under this arrangement. (The Centura offering you can). In fact you shouldn’t even attempt it I am told or Paypal may just close your Paypal account down.
When I interviewed M.A. Roy he informed me that he has personally tested the facts presented to be true, I have not personally tested the information presented.
I will not be pursuing this alternative presented by M.A. Roy because I am happy with the Centura offering and most importantly I am fearful that Paypal will all of a sudden decide they don’t like this work around and shut down every account using it. I would therefore gently caution professional bankers who post recommendations in the forum to clarify if RBC is advising us or if it is simple person to person counseling. I would be out for blood (and so would you be) if an official representing a bank presented a potentially dubious idea that caused my Paypal account to be closed. That would come at great opportunity cost and financial loss for me.
I have researched Paypal’s policies and I do not see where they say this arrangement is against their policies but they do say that withdrawing your US$ balances to a Canadian based account isn’t possible, well according to M.A Roy it is, but I won’t be the beta tester for this one as I sense the possibility of potential trouble down the road with it.
That’s all folks and thanks for listening in, I found M.A Roy's idea to be quite interesting and would like to thank him for bringing it forward.
Troy
