PayPal alternatives

You’re right. You would need a local subsidiary in an EU country if you wanted to do this.

If you have used or eur in cash here what’s the point? Are you trying to withdraw it when rates are good? Or just don’t like the rate rape PayPal and banks pay out?

I remember way back when when my PayPal was connected to bank of Taiwan I could withdraw USD into us dollar account. But only two or use. You guys are likely aware all the be with banks here now. And bank of Taiwan is increasingly retarded. I’m closing my accounts next week I’m so pissed with their lack of professionalism and fine causing egos. Private banks here can be so much nicer. But as to your question, I don’t think you can. And the government is actively making it harder for anyone to open business here.

I rather pay my USD/EUR expenses directly with EUR/USD instead of EUR -> TWD -> EUR.

Also, in general I spend quite a lot of time outside of Taiwan so for that reason as well I dont want to exchange all to TWD if I can avoid it.

And lastly, not sure I want to keep all my saving in TWD. Not sure I want to keep it in USD/EUR, but at least I want the choice.

You can withdraw US funds into a US fund account with PayPal but they take a heavy percentage (2.5%)

From their website “PayPal have partnered with E.SUN Bank to create a convenient way to get your funds into your bank account, enable you to withdraw both New Taiwan Dollars and US Dollars into your E.SUN Bank account through E.SUN Global Pass.”

Well, that kind of defeats the point. The whole idea is to be able to get usd out without any fees so I can pay usd expenses

Yes. Welcome to the Wan. Might you be interested in a little bit of Singapore?

I jumped on this thread, but we are local payment gateway and we some possibilities to offer Credit Card payment in EUR and receive the payout in EUR in Taiwan. you can contact us contact@baian.com or call our office

Western union either in person or there’s an app that lets me send and receive money.

what does Western Union cost?
by amount or flat transaction fee?

Depending on the country. To most Asian countries it’s 5$ flat. To the US it was 35$ flat. Could be cheaper than the rate bank charges for transfer and exchange the money at their rates.

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There is an EU effort to make one. It is still in the very early stages. Not supported by many banks, services and shops yet.

@Mataiou Have you heard of it?

never heard of it, but we are moving to an instant payment scenario in the EU thanks to EU directive.

it will be a very similar system to what in HK is called FPS (which works brilliantly), so you can send instant free payments up to a certain threshold by using either the phone number, the email, the HK ID number or the FPS identifier of the beneficiary.

With the most recent PSD2 it created the framework for instant payment and lowering interchange and bank costs/fees (albeit we are still in the implementation stage, not if full force yet), now with the future PSD3 we will have even stronger rules on identification and safety.

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Revolut will add Wero payment system starting July 2025.