The Lady Programmer

I am happy with my Paypal to Unionbank withdrawals. I have not encounter any problems with it. My withdrawals are always on time except when US gets on a holiday. I always get my Paypal withdrawals to my Unionbank EON account in only three business days (not the five to seven business days that Paypal states in their website): one business day for Paypal to process the withdrawal and two business days to my Unionbank account.

photo credit: gabriel77 (SXC)

Let me give a recap of some of the fees that involve Paypal to Unionbank withdrawals:

• Paypal to Unionbank
• P50 for withdrawals less than P7,000 (Paypal to Philippine bank account)
• FREE for withdrawals in excess of P7,000 (Paypal to Philippine bank account)
• $5 for Paypal to debit or credit card withdrawals
• incoming fund transfer (fee when funds are received by Unionbank): FREE (other banks like BDO and BPI charges around P200 incoming fund transfer fee)
• charges per successful ATM withdrawal:
• withdrawal from Unionbank ATMs: free for first three withdrawals, P10.00 applies after third withdrawal
• withdrawal from non-Unionbank ATMs within the Philippines: P12.00

Lets illustrate a $50 withdrawal from Paypal:

• assume $1 = P43 as exchange rate settings in Paypal, the value of $50becomes P2,150 which Paypal converts.
• since the funds to be withdrawn is less than P7,000 the P50 is deducted from the total amount, so P2,100 is transferred to the Unionbank account
• Unionbank does not charge any incoming EFT fees (unlike BDO and BPI), so expect to receive the whole P2,100 in your bank account.
• EACH successful withdrawal of this amount in a Unionbank ATM costs P10.00; but using other non-Unionbank ATMs costs P12.00 per withdrawal: you get only P2000 to P2100 for this withdrawal

Now lets see what $200 withdrawal from Paypal costs:

• assume $1 = P43 as exchange rate settings in Paypal, the value of $200 becomes P8,600 from the Paypal conversion.
• since the funds exceed P7,000 Paypal withdrawal is FREE, so the entire P8,600 is transferred to the Unionbank account
• Unionbank does not charge any incoming EFT fees (unlike BDO and BPI), so expect to receive the whole P8,600 in your bank account.
• if the ATM has a withdrawal limit of P4,000, then it takes three times to withdraw the amount; so P10.00 (using Unionbank ATM) and P12.00 (using other Philippine ATMs) will cost P30.00 and P36.00 debited from one’s account.

Bonus Tip: Use Smart Money to Withdraw Unionbank EON Funds

One effective and more convenient way that I’ve been using for sometime is to make use of Smart Money to perform the mobile banking. Smart Money provides me the convenience of doing balance inquiry away from the ATM and at the same time lets me perform immediate money transfers from my Unionbank EON bank account to my Smart Money card. What I really like about the Smart Money is that withdrawals are now FREE from any BDO ATM machine (which is found throughout the country). All I need to pay is the P2.50 airtime and I got it all in my Smart Money account.

UPDATED: February 17, 2009

I’ve found out a quicker way to verify Paypal account without using a Unionbank EON card. If you happen to own a Payoneer card then you might want to verify your account using this card because the entire process only took me less than five minutes to complete. The Paypal expanded use (EXPUSE) number, which is used to change the status of Paypal accounts from “unverified” to “verified”, is reflected immediately in my online account at Payoneer’s website.

Using a Unionbank EON card to verify Paypal has a lot of disadvantages. A person had to wait for a few days up to more than a week before calling up the bank’s customer service for the EXPUSE number. Calling up the bank’s customer service is often difficult: a Unionbank customer often needs to call up several times to get through a customer service representative. The only option that the customer could find out the EXPUSE number is to make several attempts to reach the customer service to follow up the request.

Remember, you can opt to maintain an unverified Paypal account to receive payments. However, if you need to withdraw the funds to a Philippine bank account then Paypal verification is always needed.

Before doing the procedure, you need $1.95 or more in your Payoneer account for the verification process. That amount will be refunded back to your Paypal account. If you need to know how to load funds into your Payoneer account, then read this post on ways on how to load funds into a Payoneer card.

I’ve outlined the step-by-step procedure that I had followed:

1. Login to Paypal. Create a Paypal account if you do not have one yet.
2. Make sure My Account tab is active; if not, click on that tab.
3. Under the heading My Account Overview, click the link that says Unverified just beside the Status.
4. This will enable you to enter a card and verify it. Take your Payoneer card and enter all the card details that are asked on the screen. Guide instructions are provided on the screen.
5. Login to your Payoneer account and get the Paypal EXPUSE (expanded use) number that is shown in your list of transactions (View Transactions). It is a four-digit number within your transaction history that looks like PP *nnnn Expuse where nnnn is the four-digit number assigned by Paypal. (click the image below for a closer look)
   
6. Return to Paypal by logging in again. Enter the given four-digit number in the transaction statement to your Paypal account by logging in again to your account, under Link and Confirm Card. If this is successful then your status should change to Verified. (click the image below for a closer look)
   

If you still do not have a Paypal account, simply click on the banner below for a FREE account!

UPDATE: Please wait for the official announcement from Payoneer for their virtual bank account service. This service is not yet available in most Payoneer account holders and is still in its pilot program where Payoneer selected a number of account holders to take part of this new service. Payoneer is aware that I am writing about their stuff and they had permitted me to blog about this so that Payoneer users are aware of this upcoming service.

I have encountered some Filipinos especially those who are new to freelance internet jobs who are wary of using the Payoneer card as a method of receiving payments. I find it a great way for me to receive payments and what even amazes me is that they come up with new ways that can benefit us – such as the Paypal to Payoneer withdrawal arrangements.

I was participant in their pilot program which involves tying up the Payoneer card to a virtual bank account. As I was able to do the test transfer successfully, I was greatly satisfied with the service because the transfer was very fast. Paypal to Payoneer transfers only took two working days before it was funded into my account. Best of all, the transfer is entirely free - at least for the pilot program – but the fees involved in the transfer is yet to be determined by Payoneer.

This service will go live within the next few months and will be available for any Payoneer account holder. The new services does not come automatically for existing Payoneer users: registration is still needed to avail of this cool new service. Although the transfer that I had made was with Paypal to Payoneer, anyone who wishes to fund their Payoneer card can simply put down the bank name, bank routing number and account number to withdraw from online funding institutions such as Paypal.

If the transfer from Paypal to Payoneer card remains to be free after the formal launch of virtual bank account service, then I will consider withdrawing my funds from Paypal into this card. The transfer is a lot faster for me: it takes me three or more days for Paypal to Unionbank transfer but with Paypal to Payoneer the transfer only took me two days. The transfer time depends on which institution does the transfer – thus Paypal to Unionbank transfer is longer because the money has to be cleared from one country to another while Paypal and Payoneer are both on US soil, so it follows that the transfer is a lot a faster than the latter.

UPDATED: February 18, 2009

The Payoneer virtual bank account is NOT yet offered to all cardholders. This facility is currently under pilot stage where few selected account holders were invited to take part in this new service that will be out soon. To learn more about Payoneer, click to my experience on receiving my Payoneer card.

Here is great news to Payoneer card account holders: Payoneer will be offering virtual bank account services. Payoneer cards of account holders will have the option to avail of a virtual bank account with its issuer First Bank of Delaware Metabank. This opens up more possibilities of loading the card – such as doing a Paypal to Payoneer transfer.

I am using an oDesk Mastercard which is powered by Payoneer. I will not be depended on oDesk to fund my oDesk Mastercard to fund it because I have Paypal to Payoneer transfer as another option to load my oDesk Mastercard.

Payoneer virtual bank account with SERVICES menu enabled

I got the invitation from Payoneer to participate in this pilot program through email, and after some email exchanges I had agreed to participate in their program. The first thing I had noticed is that the SERVICES menu which was normally disabled is now enabled – that was where I saw the virtual bank account service which contained the account number and the bank routing number.

Payoneer virtual bank account

I added up a new bank account in Paypal. Then I decided to send a test amount of $13.90 from my Paypal account. Paypal processed it in their system for one day, a normal occurence to anyone initiating a bank account withdrawal. I received those funds in my Payoneer account after another day. The duration of the entire Paypal to Payoneer transfer was only two business days. I made several transfers and unless there are bank holidays, I often get the funds into my account in just two business days.

Aside from that fast transfer, I think Payoneer has a superb customer service – I had already used their live chat assistance for inquiries and account problems.

The only downside to using Payoneer cards are the loads of fees that are being charged when one uses the card. I hope this post on how to save more from Payoneer withdrawals can help on how to minimize Payoneer fees. Nevertheless, I still want to keep Payoneer as another option to withdraw earnings online just in case my Paypal account fails.

I tried to compare the exchange rates of Paypal and Payoneer to check which of these give better exchange rate. Payoneer puts on a 1 to 3% currency conversion fee as dictated by Mastercard, while Paypal puts on a 2.5% currency conversion rate on top of their wholesale exchange rate.

I got into my personal accounts at Paypal and Payoneer and tried to make a tally of the transactions where currency change was in effect. In Paypal, there is an exchange of currency when I decide to withdraw funds to my bank account. Payoneer, being a Mastercard, a change of currency occurs when I decide to withdraw funds from an ATM or decide to purchase an item off a store with a different currency other than the US dollar.

Here is the comparison between Philippine Peso and US Dollar exchange rate (I’m just simply shy to show you the withdrawal transactions). Exchange rate = value in pesos/value in dollars
There are three observations that I have noted from this data:

1. In Payoneer, higher Peso exchange rate is seen when items are bought off purchase than that by cash withdrawals.
2. In Payoneer, there is no fixed exchange rate of the day: it varies a lot – the transactions worth Php 184.60, Php 1084.00 and Php 418.35 were all card purchases done in a single day.
3. At a glance, there seems to be no huge difference between the exchange rates of both payment methods.

The data could have been quite accurate if I had been able to get data that spans for several transactions: However, I have just gotten my Paypal verified only last month.

Overall, it seems to me that the exchange rate for both methods does not differ much from each other, so using any of these two payment methods would be great. Remember that if you are trying to purchase in US dollars then currency conversion fees does not apply to both Paypal and Payoneer.