PayPal adds Thai Baht & PI Peso as main currencies
By Garry HJ | October 17th, 2009 | Category: PayPal | 1 Comment »
Quietly added to the list of major currencies in which PayPal users can hold funds within their account, as well as withdraw to bank, is the Thai Baht and Philippines Peso.
These currencies have very recently appeared without any English language announcement that I can find. I learned of the additions only because of a tip-off in an email from PayPal Customer Support in relation to an entirely different topic.
Personal thanks from me to the CS rep who gave me the nudge – one of my PayPal accounts is linked to one of my Thai bank accounts, therefore this is a welcome addition. I am sure it will also be warmly welcomed not just by the rapidly growing Thai and Filipino eBay and PayPal user base , but also by the huge numbers of expatriate westerners in these countries, many of whom were the engine for eBay and PayPal growth in SE Asia, long before either company had offices here.
Hopefully, the adding of these two South East Asian currencies will save a lot of expatriates (as well as locals) a lot of fees for currency conversion at the point of withdrawal to bank – but is unlikely to achieve much saving if funds are not being received in those two currencies.
However, their addition will make it easier to convert currencies within PayPal at times that use advantageous exchange rates on the local currencies, instead of the “blind” exchange rate when withdrawing to bank as previously.
In August 2004, an article I’d written promoting eBay, PayPal, and their competitors, to expatriates, was published in a major English-language magazine here in Thailand. You can read the full version of “Rainy Season Retailing” online, and for nostalgia’s sake, see how things have changed, or not, over the last five and a bit years.
Gaz
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Thanks so much for posting this information! We appreciate the time you must have taken to present this information so clearly. It is very interesting information. You write so beautifully and profoundly…