Here’s a summary of the steps (as illustrated in the accompanying video):

1. Unionbank does NOT need any minimum balance requirements. However, one must pay P350 to open up a bank account and the accompanying Unionbank EON card.
2. Take note of the information written on the Unionbank EON card. The number at the middle of the card is the card number. The smaller number below your name is the bank account number. The bank account number IS THE ONE TO USE for verifying Paypal account.
   
   
3. You need the following:
   • EON card and bank account number
   • valid email address
   • valid phone number
   • valid postal mailing address which should be the same as the address indicated in your Unionbank EON card
   • at least P200 deposit to cover $1.95 that Paypal takes away for verification. (Note that $1.95 is returned back into one’s Paypal account after a successful verification).
4. Sign up for Paypal, choose Philippines then click the preferred account. Usually, a Personal Paypal account is enough. Make sure to use the same details that you had used with your Unionbank EON account. (If you want to know the  difference between Personal, Premium or Business Paypal account, then read this previous post: Signing up with Paypal, which account is suitable?
5. Confirm your email address by clicking the link in the verification email that came from Paypal. You will need to enter your Paypal password to complete this step.
6. Go back to the Paypal page, and just below the welcome line with your name click on the Get Verified link.
7. Login to your Unionbank EON banking and search on the transaction history for the VISA Expanded USE charge. Remember the 4 digits that appear after the word VISA.
8. Switch back to the Paypal page and enter those 4 digits into link and confirm your debit or credit card.

How to Activate “Withdraw to Bank Account” Feature

Like what Eireen Diokno-Bernardo had said in the video, I save more and get Paypal funds early using withdraw to bank account option. Please read my previous post: Withdrawing Paypal Funds: Should I Choose “Withdraw to Bank” or “Withdraw to Card”?

1. Login to Paypal account.
2. Click Withdraw tab, then click Withdraw to your bank account.
3. Fill in the information required. Although the video demonstrated how to add a Unionbank bank account, ANY OTHER PHILIPPINE BANK ACCOUNTS that are assigned Philippine bank codes by Paypal can be used: participating Philippine banks and their bank codes

One has to exercise a great deal of patience in getting their accounts enabled for mobile banking. In the long run, this setup has saved me several hundreds of pesos.

Activate Smart Mobile Banking for Unionbank EON Account

me and my card

The instructions for activating mobile banking for a Unionbank EON account is simple. All you need is a great deal of patience. (Don’t be confused with this set of procedure posted on Unionbank website – this procedure apply only to credit or saving account holders and not to Unionbank EON bank account holders).

1. Call up Unionbank EON’s customer service. The hotline numbers are listed at the back of the issued Unionbank ATM card.
2. Customer service forwards the application to the technical support. Wait for the SMS message containing the mobile PIN number within 48 hours.

When I received that SMS message, I did not think it was from Unionbank. I lost that SMS message already but it surely contained the mobile PIN number that I needed. In case my phone got lost or stolen, other people would not have any idea that the SMS message was the one that I needed to activate mobile banking. It took me a while to figure out what that SMS message mean.

After that I followed these instructions on how to activate mobile banking (Unionbank EON is one of the listed direct connect banks).

Get a Smart Money card

I have always used Smart Money card to withdraw cash from ATM machines countless times. Since this card is powered by Mastercard Electronic, it can be used to pay at POS terminals – those ones that are used in restaurants and supermarkets (ask first if a merchant accepts a payment from a Mastercard Electronic card).

1. Download a Smart Money account number. You can follow any of these activation procedures listed in their FAQ page. I used option number 2 to download my Smart Money account number.
2. Apply for Smart Money. Go to this online application form available at Smart Money website where one can wait for the card to be mailed to the preferred Smart Wireless Center. You can also apply directly to a Smart Wireless Center. Here a list of Smart Wireless Centers in the Philippines. Be sure to check out this list of qualifications and required documents before going to one.

I chose to go directly to our local Smart Wireless center here in SM Baguio to apply for a card. It took me only a less than an hour to claim my card. Our wireless center happened to have a machine that “prints” all the necessary information on the card such as my name, card number and expiry date on the card. Other places may take up to a month to wait for the card.

Not all Smart Money SIM cards are ready for this feature. Older SIM cards need to be upgraded for the new Smart Money menu. However, the cellphone number stays the same during the upgrade. This may take over a day before the Smart Money card is processed.

How to Transfer Money from Unionbank to Smart Money

Once that the Unionbank EON bank account is linked to my Smart Money card, I can now use it to transfer funds from the Unionbank EON account to the Smart Money card. You just need to do this section if you had successfully setup the two procedures above. This just takes only a few seconds up to a minute to make the fund transfer and only costs P2.50 which is deducted from the airtime (not from the funds).

1. Go to your SMART MENU select SMART Money.
2. Select “Reload Money”, press OK.
3. Once “Reload to” is shown on screen, press OK.
4. Select from your list of card names to ‘Reload to’ (recipient), then press OK.
5. Once “Reload from” is shown on screen, press OK.
6. Select from the list of banks to “Reload from”, then press OK.
7. From a list of account entries, select account number which will be the source of funds to be loaded to your card,then press OK.
8. Key in amount (minimum P100) to be reloaded, press OK.
9. You will receive a confirmation request for the transaction, press OK.
10. Enter your M-PIN of the mobile banking account you have chosen to reload cash value from, press OK.
11. You will receive a text confirmation of the amount successfully loaded and your new card balance.

Once that I get the SMS message that the Smart Money card is loaded, I can head over to the nearest BDO ATM to withdraw the full amount. It is also possible to withdraw cash from other non-BDO ATMs but there are corresponding charges that apply. Be sure to check out this list of rates that apply for every transaction that involves with Smart Money.

There’s a lot more about the other applications of Smart Money on its features and benefits page as well as on its FAQ page.

Security

One of the main concerns in doing mobile banking is the security of the transactions that involve mobile transactions. There’s a separate PINs that need to be used – one PIN is used for mobile banking transactions, and the other PIN is used during ATM withdrawals.

I have already lost my cellphone before but those thieves cannot easily access my Smart Money account and my Unionbank EON bank account. They have to successfully key in the right PIN numbers so that they can have access to those accounts.

Many new Unionbank EON card users are not able to successfully continue with the verification process in Paypal. Even if they got the new card at hand and activated, Paypal would still return the message that it cannot verify the card. This could be frustrating, because it is not really so easy to wait for the Unionbank EON card then finding out that it would not work with Paypal verification.

I think this has something to do with a minor bug on Unionbank EON debit card. The card has to contain any transaction history, even just for one entry before it can be used for Paypal verification. One way to create transaction history is to deposit funds over-the-counter.

Paypal takes away a verification fee of $1.95 from the Unionbank EON bank account, so put in funds that will cover more than this fee in Pesos. If successful this verification fee goes into the Paypal account after a few weeks. If the Paypal verification does not work successfully then the amount deducted by Paypal will be returned in full to your Unionbank EON bank account.

Remember that the Unionbank EON debit card is simply needed for verifying Paypal so that funds can be withdrawn to any Philippine bank account by electronic funds transfer.

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)
   

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