PayPal no longer allows NTD wire transfers

Business Money
21

[quote=“Lros”]wow this is a bit of a joke. they sent the money in dollars, and they made an spelling error so the bank couldn’t accept it. PROS. not that the taiwan paypal service had a lot to live up to anyway, it took the best part of a month for me to withdraw anything.

is there a way i can just change my paypal currency to NTD so it will be accepted by the bank? I have 2 paypals anyway as my first one was connected to my bank back home so this one is used only to transfer to my taiwanese bank.[/quote]

this paypal linked to my taiwan account won’t even allow me to send the money to my other paypal account, as i just recieved another payment. wut…

i think i have somewhat figured it out, the balance is in USD but i can convert it to NTD and get charged for it… and then i can transfer it to my taiwan account?

EDIT: nope, there is no option to convert to NDT. this is fairly useless.

22

[quote=“RobinTaiwan”]Got mine somewhat sorted out. Was told today that they successfully cancelled my withdrawals and will return the funds to my paypal balance. I was told it would take up to 48hrs.

I had to open a Taiwan foreign currency exchange bank account and link that to my paypal account. I’m using Bank of Taiwan for this. From there, I can withdraw US funds from my US paypal balance to this bank account. The funds will arrive to me in US$ as opposed to NT$ as it used, to. Then I can transfer the funds to my regular NT$ bank account. My bank essentially buys my US$ and transfers it to NT$.

In the end, this is actually better because my bank gives me a better rate on buying my US$ than people.

This is indeed caused by newly created policies imposed by Taiwan banks, or so I was told by paypal business support. I was told that Paypal is trying to iron things out but wire transfers are currently done manually, in batches, by paypal. This obviously slows things down and the wait time on funds transfers to Taiwan banks is between 14 and 20 days.

Better than having my funds somehow lost in cyberspace, if you ask me, and I save on currency conversion. Mind you, the funds are not showing up in my paypal balance just yet. Looks like this is actually a positive change in the end, so long as you don’t mind waiting an extra week or two to see the funds in your bank account, and so long as your paypal balance is in USD$

For people who hold a balance in different currencies, this is real bad news as you will have to sell your currency twice by the time you get NT$.[/quote]

didn’t you have to open a new paypal? i thought you can only use one bank account per paypal account.

23

Eh, that’s what happened! I did a withdrawal in late October. Never arrived. I couldn’t figure out what happened… was just about to phone Paypal… when the money was returned to my Paypal account (less NT$70).

Since I had done MANY withdrawals via the same route, I have a business account, and the name on my account was the same, I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Craig, I think this will affect you, too. Right now, I’m pondering using my other account at Mega bank.

But I’m a big worried about the names on the accounts being possibly different. Weird.

24

Someone from Paypal called me yesterday. Apparently they’re calling everyone with an account in Taiwan to tell them of the changes. Anyway, if you have PP linked to a Taiwan foreign currency account, then there shouldn’t be any problem according to the Paypal lady. If it’s linked to an NT$ account then it will no longer work.

I have my Paypal linked to both types of accounts but to be on the safe side I’m still going to open a new account in Australia when I’m there in a couple of weeks and set up a Paypal linked to it.

25

I guess I’ll have to look into this as well. The funny thing is that originally, I wanted to keep my money in U.S. dollars because I didn’t like Paypal’s exchange rate and was told that I had to withdraw money in NT dollars. So instead of linking my foreign currency account to Paypal, I linked my $NT account.

I’ve had nothing but trouble trying to figure out banking rules and trying to get everything set up for my editing business. Then, once I finally figure everything out and everything seems to be working fine, they change the rules.

I guess I’ll send them an email. I’m glad I looked at this forum today since I usually give it a miss.

26

I transferred a small fund in USD to my USD bank account here in Taiwan. PP says it will arrive on the 2nd of December… now let’s hope it works because if it doesn’t…

On a side note, for some reason when I withdrew USD to my foreign currency account Paypal converted the amount into NTD. Is anyone seeing that when they transfer the money to their foreign currency account?

27

Also wanted to ask: in order for us to transfer funds from Paypal to our bank account(s) in Taiwan do we have to go to the bank to sign up for anything (like for the post office there’s the Ipost where you can check your account online but you have to go to the p.o to sign up for one)? The banks and post office bank in Taiwan has a lot of rules/paperwork to open an account already :s so I’m very confused from the start.

I have ipost for my p.o bank account and ebank for my other bank account at Hua Nan. So I’m wondering now if I have to go back to both places to sign up for anything else… like online wire transfers or something of the like, in order to be able to transfer funds from my Paypal to there?

28

It’s worse than I thought: Confirm this, will you?

If you hold NT$ in Paypal, you can no longer do a paypal conversion to any other currency. Nor can you do a paypal conversion from any other currency to NT$.

This is terrible for me, my transaction bounced, came back to my account at Paypal; and unfortunately, the FX part was not done, so my money is now stuck in NT$… and I’m not sure what to do.

I’ve already written Paypal, but they didn’t respond to my last email either; so a phone call is necessary. But this means my $700 can’t be withdrawn.

In the end, this may be the end of Paypal in Taiwan. Stamped on by the government’s strict FX laws. If you bill using Paypal, never bill in Taiwan dollars, just refuse to accept $NT until it becomes clear how you get paid.

Right now, things are looking grim for that.

29

This sounds like a complete clusterfuck.

Somebody high up has wrecked their business.

But Paypal suck too if they can’t give people a straight answer.
Elon Musk was right that they have never achieved what they could have.

Any other PayPal like options in Taiwan that are remotely familiar to foreign customers?

30

[quote=“rinanae”]Also wanted to ask: in order for us to transfer funds from Paypal to our bank account(s) in Taiwan do we have to go to the bank to sign up for anything (like for the post office there’s the Ipost where you can check your account online but you have to go to the p.o to sign up for one)? The banks and post office bank in Taiwan has a lot of rules/paperwork to open an account already :s so I’m very confused from the start.

I have ipost for my p.o bank account and ebank for my other bank account at Hua Nan. So I’m wondering now if I have to go back to both places to sign up for anything else… like online wire transfers or something of the like, in order to be able to transfer funds from my Paypal to there?[/quote]

I didn’t have to do anything special for Paypal to transfer funds to my Megabank account. I just had to ask at the bank for the specific codes Paypal requires. But from what I’ve heard I don’t believe post office accounts accept those types of transactions.

Adding a general note to the discussion: today I had an email from Paypal informing me the changes took place on 28th Oct and that the money I’d withdrawn in NT earlier this month would now arrive at US dollars to my NT dollar account. Not much I could do about that but luckily when I opened my NT account I opened a US account at the same time. Later today Megabank phoned and I [b]think[b] asked permission to put the US dollars they’d received in my US account. Then they phoned back and asked my nationality. :s

I went into my Paypal account and added the US dollar account as an option for withdrawing funds. It seemed to accept the new account with no problems but I haven’t tried to withdraw any money yet. I’m assuming I can just transfer the money between the accounts online, but will be going into the bank in the next couple of days to make sure.

31

I’ve just added my foreign currency account to Paypal as well but I didn’t see anywhere to verify the account. I had to verify the original Taiwanese account so I could take out a larger amount of money. Do you have to verify the second account?

I might try to ask Paypal but it usually takes about three email exchanges with me saying “No, that is not what I want to know. What I want to know is …”

32

[quote=“Gilgamesh”]I’ve just added my foreign currency account to Paypal as well but I didn’t see anywhere to verify the account. I had to verify the original Taiwanese account so I could take out a larger amount of money. Do you have to verify the second account?

I might try to ask Paypal but it usually takes about three email exchanges with me saying “No, that is not what I want to know. What I want to know is …”[/quote]

I added my foreign currency account on PP too and it didn’t ask me to verify. My p.o & Taiwan bank account I had to verify when I opened.

33

[quote=“Lros”][quote=“RobinTaiwan”]

didn’t you have to open a new paypal? i thought you can only use one bank account per paypal account.[/quote][/quote]

You can have multiple bank accounts linked to one paypal account. You cannot have more than one paypal account linked to the same bank account.

34

Nope. Once is all they require. Once they know who you are, you can link more bank accounts to your paypal account without the need for further verification.

35

[quote=“ilikecoffee”]It’s worse than I thought: Confirm this, will you?

If you hold NT$ in Paypal, you can no longer do a paypal conversion to any other currency. Nor can you do a paypal conversion from any other currency to NT$.[/quote]I can do US to NT conversion, but I cannot do NT to US conversion.

You can still withdraw money to a TW bank account if you have a foreign currency exchange TW bank account linked to your paypal account. Problem is, PPL will buy your NT$ and convert them to US$ before sending the funds to your TW bank account. Then, you will have to sell the US currency to your TW bank to get NT$ if you wish to use your money in TW.

[quote]This is terrible for me, my transaction bounced, came back to my account at Paypal; and unfortunately, the FX part was not done, so my money is now stuck in NT$… and I’m not sure what to do.

I’ve already written Paypal, but they didn’t respond to my last email either; so a phone call is necessary. But this means my $700 can’t be withdrawn. [/quote]

Same here. No, worse. Some of the funds I transferred in US$ were reversed back to my PPL account… in NT$!!! I sent them US$ and they reversed the transaction after charging me for conversion and I ended up with a NT$ balance instead of the original NT$ version. It’s ridiculous. They did issue a refund for the loss I suffered in currency conversion, though… only after I complained about it over the phone.

Now, the way I worked this out is I opened a US paypal account and I sent NT$ funds to that account. The account is linked to my US bank. Had to pay a percentage just to transfer my own funds to ME! Crooks. There is no “pay as gift” option in Taiwan so a fee applies to any and all funds transfers.

Now get this… They reversed one of my transfers to my paypal balance, but they forgot to stop the transfer process and the money found its way to my bank account. Confused? Well, in short, they refunded one of my bank transfer to my balance but the bank transfer went through anyway. So now they are in the hole because the same funds are showing both in my paypal balance and in my bank account. All available funds. No restrictions. I’d like to just keep the money for my trouble, but karma and all… Plus, I think they will eventually figure out that they are short 4500US$.

Did someone say “clusterfuck?” Sounds about right.

36

I transferred USD to my USD foreign account and it returned today and stated the problem was invalid bank account. I think the problem is that when I transfer USD on Paypal, Paypal coverts it into TWD and then transfer it to my foreign account. But the foreign account only accepts USD… Is anyone else facing the problem?

37

Now Paypal have sent an email stating normal service has resumed. I didn’t find out whether it’s better value to transfer the money in US dollars anyway to avoid Paypal’s poor exchange rates. Does anyone know? I don’t know if Paypal offer the option either.

38

[quote]We would like to inform you that customers in Taiwan will be able to resume withdrawing funds from their PayPal Account to their bank account in NT Dollars. Please note that any withdrawal requests made before November 14 will still be processed via US Dollar wire transfers. We will keep you updated of any further change in our processes moving forward as soon as practicable.

Please note if you have recently changed your primary bank account to one capable of accepting US Dollar wires, you may wish to revert to your original bank account to resume receiving your withdrawals in NT Dollars.

In light of these changes we have created a page at paypal.com.tw/withdrawal-process/ to address concerns and questions you may have. You can also contact our customer support team by logging into your PayPal Account and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ at the bottom of the page.

Questions and Answers:
· I made my withdrawal yesterday. Will my funds be processed via wire transfer or the normal withdrawal process? Do I still need a bank account that can receive USD Wires?

The NT Dollar withdrawal process has resumed. Please note that any withdrawal requests made on or before November 14 will still be processed via US Dollar wire transfers. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience and understanding.
· I made my withdrawal before Nov 14 and have opened a new bank account to receive US Dollar wire transfers; do I still need to add this bank account to my PayPal Account?

Any withdrawal requests made on or before November 14 were processed via US Dollar wire transfers. If your bank does not accept international US Dollar wire transfers, you will need to add a bank account capable of accepting them.
· Is there any fee for the merchants?

The withdrawal fee for withdrawals in NT Dollars remains unchanged.
· Do I need to edit any details in my account profile?

The NT Dollar withdrawal process has resumed. You do not need to edit details in your account profile for withdrawing funds from your PayPal Account to your bank account in NT Dollars. However, if you have recently changed your primary bank account to one capable of accepting US Dollar wires, you may wish to revert to your original bank account to resume receiving your withdrawals in NT Dollars to that original bank account.
· Is this permanent? Do you expect any other changes?

For a period of time, PayPal had to change the way it processes funds withdrawal for customers in Taiwan due to regulatory changes relating to the requirements for Foreign Exchange transactions. Although the regulatory landscape is always subject to change, PayPal is committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations in every jurisdiction that we do business in.[/quote]

39

Somebody just needs to invent a stable Bitcoin and PayPal is finished.

40

I know that before the changes, you had to take your money out in NT$. I asked if I could leave my money in US dollars but they said no. If everything has gone back the way it was, then they will probably make you convert it into NT$.