Comments on: Review of PayPal Israel Q&A Event with Nissim Ohayon

By: PayPal now available in Hebrew! (Kind of) | illuminea web presence agency

PayPal now available in Hebrew! (Kind of) | illuminea web presence agency — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 21:07:23 +0000

[...] we find ourselves often reporting about PayPal usage in Israel, I thought our readers would want to know that PayPal is now available in Hebrew! Well, kind of. [...]

By: dan

dan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:43:14 +0000

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

By: Bat-Zion Benjaminson

Bat-Zion Benjaminson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:01:18 +0000

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

By: Nissim Ohayon

Nissim Ohayon — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:01:35 +0000

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

By: Darlene

Darlene — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:14:12 +0000

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

By: Nissim Ohayon

Nissim Ohayon — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:57:57 +0000

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

By: Nissim Ohayon

Nissim Ohayon — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:55:07 +0000

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

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:13:01 +0000

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!

By: Charlie Kalech

Charlie Kalech — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:43:56 +0000

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.

By: shaidavis

shaidavis — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:20:27 +0000

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!

By: ManagingTeam

ManagingTeam — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:13:35 +0000

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

By: Charlie Kalech

Charlie Kalech — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:27:26 +0000

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.