Paypal Review - Money Transfer Costs and FXcompared’s rating

PayPal Transfer Fees and Costs

PayPal has numerous commissions and fees:

• Web transactions — 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
• Swiped mobile and in-store — 2.7% of transactions
• Built-in mobile phone and in-store — 3.5% + $0.15
• Virtual terminal transactions — 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
• Chargebacks — customer pays a $20 fee

PayPal also has a special plan for companies with transactions of $10. This plan is for 5% + $0.05.

It should also be noted that PayPal Payment Pro requires a monthly payment. Therefore, the client will have to spend $30 per month for additional services and functions.

Usability

Using PayPal’s services is quite simple. The client needs to follow a few simple steps:

• Register on the PayPal website — for convenience, it is also recommended to download the PayPal application. This process will take no more than three minutes.
• Provide identification documents.
• Link a card to pay for purchases or send payments.

Although PayPal charges various commissions, the entire business is built on the ease of use of its services and universal solutions for small businesses.

Mobile product

PayPal has a mobile application that can be downloaded on iOS and Android.

The mobile app is just as easy to use as the site, and PayPal gives customers a free card reader to plug into their phone’s headphone jack.

Trustworthiness & Reliability

PayPal is registered in a number of countries and is regulated by the authorities of each jurisdiction.

PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, SCA is duly licensed as a Luxembourg credit institution according to Section 2 of the Financial Sector Act of 5 April 1993, as amended. It is also under the prudential supervision of the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier with a registered office in L-1150 Luxembourg.

The company's headquarters are located at 2211 N 1^st Street, San Jose, California, 95131.

Business product offering

PayPal offers three options for web payments:

• PayPal Checkout (formerly Express Checkout)
• PayPal Payments Standard
• PayPal Payments Pro

PayPal Checkout gives merchants and businesses the ability to add a method of payment to their website. To add this service, a developer would typically be required — however, PayPal provides the service and necessary guidance itself.

PayPal also adds localised payment methods for customers throughout Europe.

PayPal Payments Standard is a modified version of PayPal Checkout — it gives merchants more control and settings for the payment process. The standard plan contains all the integrations that PayPal Checkout includes, but does not offer smart checkout buttons.

PayPal Pro is an advanced payment processing option that included a range of universal settings — it costs $30 per month.

The Virtual Terminal service allows the client to accept payments by phone, whereby card data is entered into the browser window.

Other PayPal products and services include PayPal Here (a mobile payment processing application), POS system integration and online billing.

PayPal’s Payflow Payment Gateway is automatically provided to customers with PayPal online processing tools. However, the gateway is also available as a separate product, designed for customers who have a credit card processor but no gateway. In addition, PayPal’s Marketing Solutions service is very similar to the cropped version of Google Analytics, with the addition of add-ons from PayPal.

Furthermore, by using the PayPal.me application, the client can send and request payments to friends/relatives and customers. The recipient does not need to have a PayPal account. While personal payments are not charged, commercial payments are charged at the same rate of 2.9% + $0.30 as PayPal payments.

PayPal Commerce is a platform created in 2019 as a toolkit for developers, which enables trading platforms, e-commerce providers and crowdfunding platforms to create individual payment solutions and to accept payments in more than 100 currencies.

The PayPal platform is intended for a business that deals with the following:

• Physical goods
• Services
• E-commerce hosting services, including payment processing and shopping cart hosting
• Crowdfunding for personal projects or non-profit enterprises

Product Coverage & Service

Today, PayPal operates in more than 200 countries (although, not all provide a full range of services). It also has more than 200 million registered users and works with 25 national currencies.

Paypal also launched a new service in November 2020 enabling the use of Cryptocurrency to their account holders in the US.

Customer Feedback & Satisfaction

PayPal is a large company, which means that there are inevitably a large number of complaints. It is very difficult to quantify PayPal complaints. The problem is that PayPal is also a consumer product. As a result, a significant portion of the complaints come from consumers who have had problems with the digital wallet, or from customers who have purchased something on eBay, or from another seller.

Customer Help & Assistance

PayPal support is pretty solid, but most of the time spent solving a problem is likely to be on a community forum or knowledge base. PayPal clearly wants the client to identify the solution to their problems themselves, which is likely to solve the client’s concerns in the first instance.

It is possible to contact customer support on the site, and after authorisation, there is the opportunity to call the operator.

Pricing Transparency

One of PayPal’s strengths is its purchase protection policy. This is almost an ironclad guarantee that the client will either receive the purchased goods and services or have their money returned. This adds a layer of protection between the customer’s credit card and the provider. When a customer buys something with PayPal, the seller will never receive the customer’s credit card information. This is a smart solution to many online shopping problems and potential fraud.

The company has not experienced massive hacks such as those that interfered with other financial services, including Equifax, JPMorgan and even the international bank transfer system SWIFT. From time to time, after updating, the application requires that the client confirms their data.