PayPal --- add a USD bank account possible??

[tomstone607]

With the recent uprising of the Canadian dollar, I'm taking a beating on the currency switch over, since I sell in USD. So I opened a US Dollar account today with my bank, added it to my debit card, and away I went. I got home to try and add my new USD account to my PayPal account, this way I can transfer my USD into my US account, and convert it at a much better bank rate. Turns out, you cannot do this on PayPal. I called the PayPal #, and after being on hold for 17 minutes of long distance call, I was told that it was impossible to add a USD account to a Canadian PayPal account.

There's got to be a way around this. My question, then, is what are my possible options of depositing my US balance from PayPal into a USD account? I thought I heard someone say something about transferring it through some middle-man company... but I don't recall all the details.

What do all you other sellers do? Do you deposit Canadian Dollars into your accounts, and take the currency exchange hit too?

[javax.swing]

I thought there was some word on the boards that Waterhouse was discontinuing making that available to Canadian customers...

[shooger]

Why would TD only allow americans to use their US branch? Why would a canadian bank open a branch in the US that isn't available to canadians? Why not just start an american bank from scratch or something. Doesn't make sense.

bh542, try reading the posts in the thread. RBC Centura was talked about six or seven times before you asked and were told about RCB Centura.

[shoplineca]

I have been a TD Waterhouse client for 2-years for my US PayPal / eBay business and no problems and no word about it not allowing me to bank with them.

It is set up to allow Cdn investors bank in the US and receive thier US income from investments including dividends and interest and manage it within the TD empire so clsoing it to Cdns makes NO sense at all. They would be eliminating upwards of 90% of their customers.

Just another rumour started by those that dont know or rumours spread by the competition.

Malcolm

[niko*_*]

OPEN A TD ACCOUNT FIRST! Then you can open the Waterhouse account from Canada.

[bh542]

I went to the RBC branch to open the RBC Centura account. It seems still new to them. Nobody there did it before. It took almost 2 hours, with some help from me, and finally they faxed the form out. I hope everything will be ok.

Thank you everyone.

[josephine]

I like the XE.com idea with not having to leave your computer. I'm going to try it ASAP because the paypal exchange rates are pretty bad right now I'm guessing and my funds are starting to build up fast with the holiday season coming up.

[josephine]

Signed up just now! The link is at https://www.xe.com/fx/

So I guess I will have a US and CDN account with them which I can link to my CDN bank account?

How does XE.com make money from providing this free service?

[zarzuella]

Actually, this is posted on the TD Canada Trust Website:

http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/usbanking/index.jsp

It says they are not accepting new accounts from Canadian customers at this time.

[shoplineca]

However they are still allowing those of us who do operate them to continue. using our US accounts with TD Waterhouse.

Malcolm

[rd1000]

Josephine,

YOu will link the US account where your money located and your Canadian account to XE.com. Then you can transfer from one to the other. XE makes it money on the exchange rate, but it is much better than Paypal.

Rob

[niko*_*]

http://forums.ebay.ca/thread.jsp?forum=44&thread=100012145&modified=1100539475708

[josephine]

I got a call from XE.com just now. Turns out I misread a little detail and require a US dollar account since I can't link my paypal account with them. Someone mentioned they had an Online Banking US account? Can you advise which one is the best? I'm currently using PC Financial as my primary bank and I don't think they offer a US dollar account 😞 I may be signing up with Citizens Bank also ($50 for both referrals!) and I'm checking now to see if they offer US dollar online account.

[shoplineca]

josephine
Dont get mixed up between US dollar account and US Bank account. You need a US Bank account which few Cdn banks can offer you.

PC Financial cannot offer you a US Bank account however they are part of the CIBC so you may be able to open something up with one of their US subsidiary banks.

Malcolm

[josephine]

hmm ... the guy who called me said to get a US dollar account at any bank, including HSBC. So I'm sure he meant it doesn't have to be a US bank account. Right?

Also I checked an Citizens Bank doesn't have a free US dollar account. And I'm hoping to get a free one (with online access) otherwise it would defeat the purpose of getting the lower exchange rate 😛

[shoplineca]

It HAS to be a US Bank account as the routing code is different from ours. The US sytem uses a 9-digit routing cose and that is the only one that is accepted by PayPal as a US account.

Years ago, you could open up a US bank account through your Cdn bank and the bank your cheques were drawn on reflected the US operation.

That has since changed and Cdn banks simply offer you a Canadian bank account to deposit your US funds. This is not the same thing at all and while you can write cheques on the US dollar account, many US businesses and bank will NOT accept these as there are considerable clearing delays before the funds are considered "good" adding to the cost of handling.

MOST bankers dont know anything about this as they have not been trained or familiarized in these special services (I am an ex-banker and am very familiar with branch training of staff on a "need to know" basis).

US banks and PayPal and many businesses will look for the 9-digit routing code which means that the cheque is drawn on a US domestic bank.

Most of the Cdn Power Sellers operate US Bank accounts just for that purpose alone so tell your HSBC bank clerk or whomever talked to you to not sway their customers into the wrong bank products when they have NO idea about what they are talking about.

You would end up wasting a couple of months screwing around with PayPal and getting no-where while paying bank fees for an account that would be totally useless to you at the same time all your money would be with PayPal waiting for you to get a proper bank account opened.

You are also paying PayPal $.50 each time you transfer to your Cdn bank account as well as loosing in the exchange rate. I dont know how much you do in US funds per month or how often you transfer but I pay $3.95 per month for my US account which pays me interest to reduce that cost and I do at least 2 transfers per week. So on transfers alone I am saving money.

Malcolm

[shooger]

I want money from XE.com for endorsing them in this thread! I'm gonna email them right now and demand some kind of tshirt or something. 😛

Anyway, yeah, XE makes their money (on "free" transaction) by charging slightly more to buy money than they bought it for. If the going rate is 6 GACH per 10 DOODOOs, and PayPal will let you trade in 8 GACH to get 10 DOODOOs, maybe XE would charge you 7. Money transferring is all they do, unlike banks who have overhead and all kinds of stuff. So XE still makes a little bit of "profit" off the transaction (in this case 1 GACH over the going rate). That covers all their fees and provides them some income. If you're transferring a fairly good amount of money (a few thousand dollars at a time) then you're usually going to save 5, 10, maybe 20 bucks over what you'd get from PayPal. That adds up.

Also the actual transfer process is kinda cool. Once you log on, and tell them how much you want to exchange and what accounts to do it to and from, you go to a page that shows you the rate up to the current minute. You can watch it and keep refreshing, and actually see it fluctuate. When you're ready, you click TRANSFER and your rate is locked in. I think it's mostly just a gimmick, but it always makes me feel good to get what I think is the best rate at the time. It only moves by a couple dollars or two overall in the short term, I guess.

[josephine]

So which US bank is best and how would I go about signing up since I'm in Canada?

On paypal withdrawals, I think they're finally waiving the 50 cent fee to CDN accounts late in November. Anyway, 50 cents is nothing compared to how much we lose with the ever growing poor exchange rate 😞

[marcopoloca]

i just did a withdrawal couple days ago, they still charging me 50 cents.

[josephine]

I think it takes effect on 19th or something. They announced it a few months ago so check the policy updates when you log in.

So any suggestions on the banks? ?:|

[shooger]

"So which US bank is best and how would I go about signing up since I'm in Canada?"

That is what this thread is about. I'd summarize it for you, but I don't have 45 minutes. Please read the thread and you'll have all the info you requested. 🙂