Can I Move Money From Paypal To Amex Bluebird

PayPal Goes Later on the Unbanked, simply There Are Better Alternatives

VentureBeat's Rebecca Grant alerts us to the launch of a new PayPal payment production – the PayPal My Greenbacks Card. "It is the company's first "fully branded greenbacks loading token" which hands converts cash into secure online funds", she informs u.s.. The menu is issued jointly with InComm – a provider of prepaid services.

Having looked into the new bill of fare, I am surprised that neither Grant, nor other reviewers have seen what I saw. While PayPal's new production could feasibly be used by other consumers, its primary target group would be the nation's unbanked. Later on all, if you had a banking concern account, a much more natural style of handling your cash would be to deposit it into your banking concern business relationship. Then, if you wanted or needed to fund your PayPal account, you would practice it easily and for costless from your depository financial institution account.

On the other paw, to unbanked consumers, the new card offers a low-toll choice of making online payments at merchants accepting PayPal – something they otherwise could not practise. But that description likewise reveals the card'due south limitations: PayPal's cash menu is neither as widely accepted as the all-time of the new-age prepaid cards, nor tin can information technology boast their checking account replacement capabilities. An unbanked consumer would exist far better served by American Express' Bluebird prepaid card.

PayPal My Cash Menu

PayPal's greenbacks card tin can exist purchased for $3.95 (an "activation fee") at "more than than xxx,000 retail locations beyond the U.S., including Fred'due south Super Dollar and more than 10,000 Dollar General stores", Patrick Gauthier, PayPal's Head of Emerging Retail Services, tells usa in a blog post. It is bachelor in fixed amounts of $50 and $100, equally well as variable denominations from $xx to $500, we learn.

The card'south funds can just exist used later they are "redeemed" – PayPal speak for depositing the funds into the cardholder's PayPal account. And so it is important to point out that this is not a prepaid bill of fare. PayPal'due south greenbacks card is best described as a vehicle for depositing cash into i'south PayPal account.

Moreover, the cash card is not reloadable, which means that every time yous want to add funds to your PayPal business relationship, you would have to become a new menu and pay the $3.95 fee for it. PayPal tells united states of america that there is a $500 daily limit and $4000 monthly limit when sending money from your My Greenbacks cards to your PayPal Business relationship.

PayPal Greenbacks Bill of fare vs. Bluebird

Now allow'south see how this new card compares to the all-time currently available prepaid menu – Bluebird, which is jointly issued by American Express and Wal-Mart. To brainstorm with, Bluebird comes with no activation fee, is reloadable and monthly deposits are capped at $ten,000 – all much better terms than PayPal's.

Moreover, Bluebird, every bit whatever other new-age prepaid bill of fare, can be used at brick-and-mortar, as well equally online retailers, whereas the PayPal cash card'due south sole office is to enable consumers to fund their PayPal accounts. At present, it should be noted that PayPal has been making headlines with its incursions into concrete retail territory and is no longer an online-just payment option. Non only is PayPal now accepted at Home Depot's stores, but, through its alliance with Discover, information technology will eventually become a payment selection at the checkouts of all merchants ("more than 7 million", we were told back when the agreement between the 2 companies was announced) that accept Discover cards. However, it is yet to exist proved that shoppers would actually exist using their PayPal accounts at the cash registers.

More importantly, Bluebird users can deposit checks, as well as greenbacks, into their prepaid accounts and can fix direct deposits for their paychecks. These are all fee-free transactions, as are withdrawals from any ATM belonging to the MoneyPass Network. Additionally, Bluebird offers bill-pay, just like credit and debit cards do. PayPal's greenbacks card comes with no such functionalities. The just difference between a Bluebird carte and a checking account is that you can't use American Express's product to write checks. For all other purposes, Bluebird is every bit expert as or improve than most checking accounts.

The Takeaway

And so it is difficult to see why anyone who is cut off from the traditional financial system would prefer to eolith her cash into her PayPal account when she could become one of the truly good prepaid cards that are now available. And by the way, in addition to their big offline advantage, prepaid cards that carry the logo of one of the big card networks are much more than widely accepted than PayPal even online. The bottom line is that, big as it has grown, PayPal cannot quite match the reach of the Visas, MasterCards or American Expresses of the world just all the same.

Image credit: PayPal-greenbacks.com.

Source: https://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/paypal-goes-after-the-unbanked-but-there-are-better-alternatives/

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