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Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon

PayPal Israel logoStill confused by how to use PayPal in Israel? You’re not alone. No matter how many times we write it up and try to understand all the ins and outs, and jump for joy over new developments, we still have more questions. Ever since PayPal started paying attention to Israeli online payments, we’ve eagerly been following the developments along the way, and have even become so PayPal obsessed that we’re now considered PayPal experts.

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

Israel specific PayPal notes

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:

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Rebecca Markowitz on December 22, 2009 • Category eCommerce • Tags: , , , Comments (11)

11 Responses to “Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon”

  • Comment by Charlie Kalech
    Twitter: on Dec 23 2009 at 11:27 am

    Thanks Rebecca for this write-up. A few more items from my understanding at the event:

    Israelis can withdraw US dollars into a bank account if they have a US Dollar account in the United States.

    PayPal has 2,000 people working on fraud analysis in addition to the systems they have in place for this purpose.

    Paypal’s return on transactions due to fraud is .3% which is a tenth of the industry average of 3%.

    PayPal will only allow individuals and companies in Israel to use their platform for the payment of goods and services. Israeli non-profits may not use PayPal to receive donations at this time.

    Thanks to all who attended the Jerusalem Web Professionals event and made it a success – and of course special thanks to Nissim Ohayon for his informative presentation.

  • Comment by ManagingTeam on Dec 23 2009 at 12:13 pm

    Charlie, Thanks for adding those points and thanks for having the event – very helpful.

  • Comment by shaidavis on Dec 23 2009 at 12:20 pm

    thanks, rebecca, for the writeup. i had hoped to make it myself, but couldn’t in the end.

    I’m still confused about the most basic part, however – setting up. i have a paypal account from years ago that i use, and I can’t for the life of me understand how to add my israeli bank account to that account. am i missing something? misunderstanding something?

    thanks again!

  • Comment by Charlie Kalech
    Twitter: on Dec 23 2009 at 12:43 pm

    Shai –

    When you initially register, you set your country. If you registered in the US, you will not be able to add your Israeli bank account. Check your country.

    Note: This was an issue that came up time and again in the evening and appears to be one of the shortfalls of PayPal’s current system. That is, although PayPal supports that they support a tremendous variety of currencies, they do not allow you to transfer those currencies to bank accounts in those currencies under all conditions.

    In this case we should note that as far as I understand an Israeli may transfer Shekels into and Israeli Shekel account or dollars into a US Dollar account. However and American can only transfer dollars into a US Dollar account. You are considered American or Israeli by PayPal based on the country you chose in your settings.

  • Comment by Rachel on Dec 28 2009 at 5:13 pm

    My company wants to use Paypal. We are an Israeli non-profit, but we also run a successful online store.

    We originally signed up with PayPal many years ago as a non-profit, and as you explained were told we could not use PayPal.

    Can we create a new Israeli account as a store, and use PayPal for the store part of our organization only (not accepting donations). Or is this an issue since we were previously refused by PayPal?

    If we can, is there anything special we need to do? Or just start a new account as an online store in Israel, business account type?

    Also, we do want to continue to use our own credit card server in addition to accepting PayPal payments. Is this an issue?

    Thanks!

  • Comment by Nissim Ohayon
    Twitter: on Dec 29 2009 at 11:55 pm

    Hello Rachel,
    We should be able to find a solution for you. Please be in touch directly. If you follow me on Twitter (@PayPal_BaAretz), I will DM you my direct email address.

    Cheers,
    Nissim

  • Comment by Nissim Ohayon
    Twitter: on Dec 29 2009 at 11:57 pm

    Sorry, didn’t notice the nice new Twitter field in the post last time. The Twitter link above should work this time.
    :-)

  • Comment by Darlene
    Twitter: on Jan 13 2010 at 1:14 am

    I am from the US. My ? TO YOU why doesn’t paypal take Israel credit cards. I have a customer who was dined today.

  • Comment by Nissim Ohayon
    Twitter: on Jan 19 2010 at 7:01 pm

    While individual transactions are sometimes declined, Israeli-issued credit cards (Visa/MC/Amex) with full international numbers (16-digit) are accepted by PayPal.

  • Comment by Bat-Zion Benjaminson on Feb 08 2010 at 11:01 am

    Niaaim,
    Ir is taking longer than it is supposed to to get money into my bank account. Over a week usually. Never 3 days.
    What days are counted as “business days?” Friday? Sunday?
    Please see if you can speed this up to 3 days.
    Thank you.
    Bat-Zion

  • Comment by dan
    Twitter: on Mar 08 2010 at 7:43 pm

    will israel accounts be able to order paypal debit cards anytime soon?

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