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Paypal (Ebay) - $US Balances- in Canada

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Martin:
This tread is to summarize the good work of cwt902, TheMonetaryMan, M.-A._Roy and coinsplus for showing us two methods of getting your US balances from Paypal without having to exchange it in Canadian dollars.

I must say that the second one that M.-A._Roy offered us might be a work a round Paypal policies and might get your account shut down.

cwt902:
Here is the solution.....there is RBC Centura in the USA and RBC Royal Bank here in Canada.  The Centura account is a US account and The Royal Bank is the CDN US dollar account.  You can open a Centura account at the Royal Bank here in Canada and do not have to set foot in a bank in the USA.  When you log into your online banking at RBC Royal Bank you can access you RBC Centura account details as well and transfer your balances between the borders.  If you keep a balance of $700 in your Centura account the 3.95 monthly fee is waived.

TheMonetaryMan:
Status report:

Opened a Centura Account this morning, the product offering was called RBC Access USA Service (Centura).
$3.95 monthly fee, waived if you maintain a $700 monthly balance. They also have a premier version of this account which carries a $25 a month fee, waived if you keep $2500 a month on deposit.

The set up went reasonably well but I walked away empty handed. They do the application at the local RBC branch but then they have to fax it offsite to Centura reps in the USA.  Your "package" then arrives in the mail sometime later, included is your new account info and cheques. You cannot get an account # or counter cheques when you go into a local RBC and open the account, all you do is paperwork initially. I guess that is to be expected somewhat given that Centura is a subsiduary of RBC.

The product offering itself appears to be as good as I hoped at this point and when my package arrives I will attempt to initiate the Paypal setup and test withdrawing and depositing to and from the account.

Based on the setup process I would give the advantage to my USA bank in Calais Maine so far.  No fee account & I was in and out of my Bank in the USA in 15 minutes or less (W8 form included) and had my account open with cheques in hand and had deposited money onsite, instantly, and all subsequent electronic paypal deposits/withdrawals have worked flawlessly.

I suspect the RBC product offering will be stronger however the rest of the way, we shall see. No conclusions can be drawn yet.

Thanks
Troy

TheMonetaryMan:
Update:

After 16 days of waiting for my RBC package (all I had received was an interac card...actually called an "InterLink" card in the USA) I was tired of waiting so I picked up the phone and called the number on the back of the card this morning.

Now the good news! Apparently my account was setup and active but I just haven't received anything yet to advise me of this. I then enrolled over the phone for web based banking and to my delight when I entered my new password and username over the web my active account was right there!

I then took the 9 digit routing# and 10 digit account # found on the RBC Centura website to Paypal's doorstep immediately, and guess what!? They answered and said come on in!! (select USA not Canada from the main drop down menu on paypal when adding the account).

1st financial testing is underway now sending money to and from the account. I will report back as soon as I confirm you can withdraw from paypal to the RBC account.

I may even close my account in USA (Maine) and use this solution exclusively because it has superior online access to track transactions and funds can be withdrawn at any local RBC branch!

This new RBC Centura product offering could be a "breakthrough" for all Canadian users of Paypal. (no brainer for sellers as it will save you a fortune in currency conversion surcharges imposed by Paypal and useful for buyers too who want a US$ e-check payment option when paying online sellers through paypal for purchases they made).

Troy E. MacDonald

TheMonetaryMan:
Final Report:

I can now confirm that the best solution to Hudson's problem stated at the beginning of this thread is to open a RBC Centura US$ account at his local Royal Bank branch. The alternative is to open a US$ account with a bank on USA soil as I had originally done prior to the RBC Centura product being available.

The RBC Centura account IS accepted by Paypal and it is in every way a true USA US$ account that can be managed through your local Royal Bank.

This will allow you to withdraw your paypal funds into your new RBC account without being hit with the currency conversion surcharges paypal imposes.

The online access provided by RBC Centura is 2nd to none and in fact you can even import other bank accounts from other banks into your RBC Centura web based environment for ease of viewing all your banking relationships at a glance.

The RBC account I can confirm after personally setting up and testing it is working within the Paypal environment, mind you it took 3 weeks to setup (end-to-end).

Was it worth it? Without any question, definitely yes. I can now recommend this for all Canadian Paypal users after having put it through the test on our collective behalf.

CWT, your hypothesis was correct, it worked.

Conclusion: If you reside in Canada and use Paypal you can almost certainly benefit from opening a RBC Centura US$ bank account.

Troy.

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