PayPal offer the following benefits
- You can use your PayPal account to make or receive payments for goods and services online.
- Shop online at merchants in 67 countries and regions.
- Pay for things and send money without sharing your financial information.
- Checkout quickly at hundreds of your favourite online stores (not just eBay!).
- Receive payments from buyers in 190 countries and regions.
All nice offerings, but what about practicality from an ecommerce website point of view? Well, in order for you to receive funds into your PayPal account, you will be required to transact in one of the currencies supported by them – unfortunately South African Rands is not one of them.
Local users using your website would surely want to see prices displayed in South African Rands, however, at the checkout stage, these prices need to be represented in, say, US Dollars or one of the other currencies supported by PayPal, which may confuse users and give them cause for concern. Ideally, users would want to checkout in the currency they are trying to transact in.
Currently FNB have exclusivity, meaning that the only way to transact using PayPal for South Africans is to have a qualifying FNB account as well as setting up a PayPal account.
Some of the things to be wary of when opting for this approach:
- FNB charge 1.5% of each ‘withdrawal’ and ‘top up’ amount on top of PayPal charges. This percentage is based on the PayPal Rand-Dollar exchange rate.
- Each ‘withdrawal’ and ‘top up’ transaction through your FNB qualifying account needs to disclosed and the purpose of your transaction provided, including contact information to ensure that you comply with all South African Reserve Bank regulations.
- All funds received into your PayPal account must be withdrawn within 30 days of receipt.
- A Top Up can take between one and four days to reflect in your PayPal wallet.
- A Withdrawal can take between three and six days to reflect in your FNB account. This excludes weekends and public holidays in South Africa and the United States of America.
All in all this may be more hassle than its worth and being unable to predict transaction timelines and exact transaction amounts may result in users using local payment gateways instead.