This is an important end to a serious usage barrier that existed until now for PayPal in Israel. Israeli merchants couldn’t really use PayPal as long as the interface for customers was in English, and it certainly makes life easier for them in terms of setting up their accounts.

It’s kind of funny that PayPal released a Hebrew version, since last week I gave a lecture to a group of Gush Katif evacuees on how to use PayPal in order to sell their art to a wider market. (Fact: unemployment in Gush Katif hovered around 0%. Since the Jewish residents were removed from the area, their employment rate is around 30%.) The group did not speak English, and found the English interface to be daunting. I told them that PayPal had mentioned plans to make PayPal Hebrew, but I didn’t foresee that happening any time soon. Nice to see I was wrong.

Here’s my presentation (in Hebrew, with English screenshots), which is a basic intro to getting started with ecommerce and PayPal:

Related posts:

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3. Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon Still confused by how to use PayPal in Israel? You’re...

Well, we just found that PayPal Israel has established a local support number!

The number is 073-713-7777 and is open 9am to 6pm  Sunday through Thursday.

I had a PayPal question so I decided to call and see how the support was. The rep was very friendly and helpful, and it turns out he’s located in Dublin. He told me that since this support service is new, the Dublin office is taking Israeli support questions until about the end of July, when the Israel office will have finished setting up Israeli support agents.

He also told me you can email your questions to israel@paypal.com. This is a temporary address until the Israeli support team is up and running.

Hurray!

Here are some other PayPal posts we’ve written that you may find helpful:

• Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon
• Israel PayPal accounts can now withdraw funds to Israeli bank accounts! Amen!
• Thanks to our blog, we are now considered PayPal Israel experts
• How PayPal really works for Israelis and Shekels
• Everything you wanted to know about Paypal and the Israeli Shekel

Related posts:

1. Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon Still confused by how to use PayPal in Israel? You’re...
2. Israel PayPal accounts can now withdraw funds to Israeli bank accounts! Amen! The day that I thought would never arrive is here:...
3. PayPal now available in Hebrew! (Kind of) Since we find ourselves often reporting about PayPal usage in...

But of course we’re obsessed since being able to easily accept and send online payments is crucial to any kind of online commercial activity. If you’re driving traffic to your ecommerce site with SEO (search engine optimization) and/or social media marketing, you need to see measurable results and often that includes making sales. The ability to use PayPal or other online gateways without having to sell our unborn children (someone on twitter actually made that comparison) can make all of that possible.

Luckily, Nissim Ohayon, Sr. Business Development Manager at PayPal Israel came to Jerusalem Web Professionals last night to try to calm our anxiety.

Here were the major questions and answers from the evening

1. Can you withdraw US dollars in Israel?
   No, you can only withdraw money in the currency of the country you’re in.  In Israel, you can withdraw shekels. In the US, you can withdraw dollars.
2. Can I use a local Israeli credit card like Visa Cal or Isracard to RECEIVE money?
   No, but now it’s not really an issue since you can withdraw funds to your Israeli bank account.
3. Can you use a local Israeli credit card to SEND money?
   No, only PayPal or international credit cards at this point. No plans yet to make this available.
4. How can I fill up my PayPal account with money?
   Right now, the only way to fill up your account is through getting paid by someone else. No plans announced yet for when you can transfer funds from your bank account to your paypal account.
5. There are 3 types of PayPal accounts – Personal, Premier, and Business. What’s the difference?
   Personal: You can receive payments via PayPal only.
   Premier: You can accept credit cards. For individuals who buy and sell online.
   Business: You can accept credit cards. For merchants who buy and sell online.
6. What are the fees associated with the Merchant (Business or Premier) accounts?
   You can look at the PayPal Israel site to see a list of transaction fees.
7. Are there any fees associated with the Personal account?
   PayPal to PayPal payments are free.  However, let’s look at the following example.  Let’s say you have a personal account and someone is supposed to pay you $10. If their account has $0, the money will come from their bank account or credit card. If it comes from their credit card, you pay 5.4% fee to PayPal.
8. Can you set up a PayPal Debit Card in Israel?
   Not at the present time.
9. Are there any plans for Hebrew integration, Hebrew buttons, etc.?
   Not at the present time.

Handy Israel-Specific Send, Receive, Withdraw VISUAL

For Web Developers

Nissim discussed X.com, a developer network community for developers looking to extend PayPal’s usage with new applications.

Alternatives to PayPal in Israel for accepting local credit cards

Since PayPal doesn’t accept local Israeli credit cards, Tranzila came up as the only alternative to PayPal to accept local Israeli credit cards. The problem for small businesses in Israel is that Tranzilla charges a monthly fee which is not cost effective for minimal monthly transactions.

Conclusion

In short, Nissim reminded me what a great option PayPal is for safely accepting international payments. He also emphasized what a huge marketplace PayPal is with over 200 million users and $3Billion in play every 2 weeks.

It was also so nice to see a real person behind the faceless company come to Jerusalem to explain the nitty gritty and answer our zillions of questions.

Unfortunately, PayPal Israel doesn’t look like it will be in Hebrew or accept local Israeli credit cards any time soon.

For more questions, you can follow Nissim on Twitter, or ask questions here in the comments. He’s been very responsive here on our other posts about PayPal.

More on using PayPal in Israel:

• Israel PayPal accounts can now withdraw funds to Israeli bank accounts! Amen!
• Thanks to our blog, we are now considered PayPal Israel experts
• How PayPal really works for Israelis and Shekels
• Everything you wanted to know about Paypal and the Israeli Shekel

Related posts:

1. Israel PayPal accounts can now withdraw funds to Israeli bank accounts! Amen! The day that I thought would never arrive is here:...
2. Everything you wanted to know about Paypal and the Israeli Shekel People are always asking us about Paypal and how it...
3. PayPal Israel now has a customer support number! We at illuminea get quite a lot of PayPal support...

PayPal says that it will take 3-5 days for your funds to arrive in your Israeli bank account, and there is an 8 NIS fee if you withdraw less than 1000 NIS at a time:

To add a bank account to your PayPal account, you have to fill out the following form:

If you click on “What’s this?” next to where it says “Bank and Branch Code,” the following pop-up window will appear with the exact spelling of each bank in English for entering in the field called “Bank name,” and the exact bank code for entering in the field that says “Bank and Branch Code.”

In the “Bank and branch code” field, you need to enter the two digit code for your bank and then the three digit code for your branch number. So let’s say your bank account is at Bank Leumi in branch 368 – you would enter 10368 in that field.

Note that there is a minimum that you can withdraw, and that is 40 NIS.

I managed to add a bank account, but I haven’t yet tried withdrawing funds. But it seems to be set up to work, so hopefully we Israelis can now use PayPal as a real means for accepting credit card and online payments, without the stress we had to go through until now.

Related posts:

1. Everything you wanted to know about Paypal and the Israeli Shekel People are always asking us about Paypal and how it...
2. PayPal Israel now has a customer support number! We at illuminea get quite a lot of PayPal support...
3. Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon Still confused by how to use PayPal in Israel? You’re...