Gozit

Someone had mentioned PayPal when I was looking to transfer money internationally on a monthly basis... I'd like to know more on how exactly to go about it... I will be transferring the CAD equivalent of 100-150 EUR monthly, from Canada (RBC) to Malta (Bank of Valletta) ... I have two paypal accounts, one in Canada with the RBC bank account hooked directly up to it, as well as my Canadian VISA debit card, the other in Malta which will have my Maltese VISA electron card hooked up to it once I get the number for it. (Maltese paypal does not support direct linking of Maltese bank accounts, so the Visa electron is my only option)

I guess the procedure would be to transfer funds from Canadian paypal to Maltese paypal, then go into the Maltese paypal and "withdraw" the funds via my Visa electron card? Would that work?

Goodbhoy

I also have this set up.
With UK paypal and Canadian Paypal linked up at both ends.


However, each time I tried to pay, paypal declined my payment.
I found it easier to use Canadian Forex.


Payment went through within a few days.

Oakvillian

I haven't used PayPal like this so can't comment from direct experience, but my one piece of advice based on having made a few international paymetns via PayPal is to look very carefully at their fees and charges. For a series of regular transactions of that sort of value you might find that PayPal is an extremely expensive way of doing things, when you factor in both the exchange rate "haircut" and the per-transaction costs. Why not ask your bank (at either end) what they recommend as a cost-effective method for regular small international transactions?

not2old

as discussed in post #2 & #3 relative to the issues as well as look at not only the FX but also the charges

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Gozit

Thanks. I'll check out those two as options as well. To send by online transfer from RBC there is a charge of CAN $ 15.00 per $2,500 transferred abroad, so on 150 Euro / month transferred that adds up, so directly from the bank is ruled out.

Aviator

Check out these guys
Payso - Send and receive money from your phone quickly and securely

They are based in Vancouver

Ernie_wise

Yes that's exactly how it works. I'm currently sending a similar amount back to the UK on a regular basis and I find that the money normally clears in the UK within the hour.

Sparrow Clan

Hi Gozit,

I have 2 PayPal accounts. One Canadian account linked to my Canadian bank account and the other a UK account linked to my UK bank account. It worked fine for me, just had to signed in one account, make a transfer, sign out and sign into the receiving account!

conjonway

+1 that's what I've been doing for student loans in the UK

gemmab1979

I spent 2 years paying the bank $25 to transfer money home each month before the penny dropped that as my PayPal is linked to my UK account and my husbands is linked to canada, I can transfer money from his into mine then withdraw it for free, and it shows in my UK account instantly. Wish I'd have thought of it sooner

BristolUK

Am I reading this correctly? I occasionally withdraw cash from my UK bank account from any of three nearby banks. There are two fees involved, one for cash and one non standard currency. I think it's about £7 for £100/$200 and a bit less for the next hundred.

So, instead, I could pay £100 into a UK paypal account, transfer that to Canadian Paypal account and transfer that to Canadian bank?

But what exchange rate is used between paypal accounts?

gemmab1979

Yes. It's totally free the British side, I pay about 50 cents to transfer $250 from my husbands PayPal to mine. I guess it would be similar the others way round? Exchange rate decent, a bit less than what you get in a bank I think.

BristolUK

Interesting.

I might experiment with doing one by bank machine and one by paypal and see how it compares.

Gozit

Thanks, i'll check them out as well, as there is some uncertainty as to whether or not paypal will work for me on the Malta end, since the banks there do not support directly linking the bank account to the paypal account as the Canadian/British ones do, so instead I link the Maltese debit card, which is a special form of "visa electron" debit card (whatever that means, it looks similar to my RBC Virtual Visa Debit) , and i'm not sure if it will work or not. So good to keep other options in mind. The other two that not2old linked above were just as expensive as the bank so i will not bother with them. (but thanks anyways!)

Edit: Payso currently only works for domestic transfers within Canada unfortunately.

Cheers Hopefully it works like that for me (see above)

Gozit

Just as an update: Got the Visa electron in the mail back home, nanna sent me the number and security PIN and I added it to my Maltese paypal, it was confirmed, and as a test I transferred 17 Euro. Paypal charged a 2 Euro fee so I ended up with 15 Euro into my bank account. Not bad

So just in summary, what I did was

-Create 2 paypal accounts, one Cdn, one Maltese
-Link Cdn bank account to Cdn paypal and Maltese visa debit to Maltese paypal
-Send 17 Euro ($25 or so) from Cdn paypal to Maltese paypal
-Log out of Cdn paypal, log into Maltese
-"Withdraw" 17 Euro from Maltese paypal to Maltese visa debit card
-Paypal charges 2 Euro fee, and 3 business days later I check my online banking for the Maltese account and the 15 Euros were there.

So this is a viable option for me to transfer 100-200 euro a month across...

Cheers guys!