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If you have never heard about this, PayPal currently accepts Malaysian credit cards, but they don’t send checks to Malaysians or transfer funds to Malaysian bank accounts. This is the main concern of most Malaysian eBayers. During the talk, I can see a few of the participants can’t wait to ask questions about this. However, the solution given from eBay was not a promising one.

They suggested that we find some friends or relatives in other countries (e.g. Singapore) to open a PayPal account. Then, when you are receiving payments, make the client pay into that account. Anyhow, I don’t see that this is a solution. It’s really hard for us to actually get a trustworthy person, especially when dealing with money. Don’t you agree?

Besides that, MOL has talked about expanding their services to other countries on the second quarter of year 2006. They are currently working on a partnership with an international bank, Western Union which would allow eBayers from other countries “top-up” our Malaysian MOLSafePay account at any Western Union branch worldwide.

(My thoughts) Even if the service is available, a few problems may arise:

• Would they (your client) take the trouble to “top-up” your account?
• Is Western Union really available at every corner of the world?
• Since this is not the standard payment method, how long do we need to wait to have buyers to accept it?

Those are few things that came to my mind when I heard that. Still, Malaysian has the PayPal (payment) problem unsolved. There was even one member asked about transferring PayPal funds to MOLSafePay accounts. I find that it is really an excellent solution, but they replied that it’s not feasible.

Looking at our disappointment, one of the committee did say that they are still working to bring PayPal pays to Malaysian but it should take time. So, fellow Malaysians, be patient.

I'll be glad if you would voice your opinion on this issue, whether you are Malaysian or not.

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• eBay Explained! 2005: Selling/Auction Tips
• eBay Explained! 2005: eBay.com Vs eBay.com.my
• The Big eBay Logo at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre
• eBay Explained! 2005: The Event
• eBay Explained 2006

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kenny lee says:

iF THIS PAYPAL ISSUE CANT SOLVED…malaysians will still stick to Lelong.com.my and lowyat.net or other to trade..

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Felix Leong says:

Basically PayPal is still a sticky issue, since they would need to partner with a Malaysian bank, and that probably subject to regulation and control from Bank Negara and probably Malaysian laws and how the negotiation and cooperation between the bank and Paypal goes.

Therefore there are alternative payment services like BidPay (http://www.bidpay.com/). MOLSafePay sounds like one of those alternate services, which does sounds promising if they accept International credit cards.

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Felix Leong says:

(P/S: I know Western Union did offer money transfer from BCB, and they pretty much specializes in International money transfers. You can check their site at http://www.westernunion.com/)

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EngLee says:

Kenny,

It’s always good to have alternatives. 🙂

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Felix,

Well, MOLSafePay still have a very long way to go. Nothing can be done, other than wait.

As for Western Union, I just checked their site. It’s stated that we can transfer funds from other countries to Malaysian BCB bank account. Then, how shall we transfer from PayPal account to Western Union then? Maybe I’m just to inexperienced in these stuffs. Hopefully some experienced eBayers can point this out. As for transferring money to PayPal, there’s not much problem since PayPal is accepting our credit cards (right?).

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Felix Leong says:

I’m a eBay.com buyer myself and I have used Paypal all this while :). So far no glitches or problems in transfering the money out.

Basically to transfer from your Paypal account to a bank account, they must be a partnership and some sort of system integration between Paypal and an existing local bank. In our Malaysian context, there aren’t any partnership that exist yet (as mentioned in my last comment). So that’s why we can’t transfer out our funds from our PayPal account just yet.

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Felix Leong says:

*Note:
You can get an overall idea in this page:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-approved-signup-countries-outside

See the difference between Malaysia and Singapore:
Malaysia: Users in these countries cannot withdraw funds to their local bank account electronically or by paper check. They can -withdraw funds to a U.S. bank account.- (only)
Singapore: Users in these countries and territories can -withdraw funds to either a local or a U.S. bank account.-

(Dang! I need an comment edit button. [read: feature request :p])

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EngLee says:

Great to have your opinion here. I can do the editing job, if you want. 😉

Malaysia: Users in these countries cannot withdraw funds to their local bank account electronically or by paper check. They can -withdraw funds to a U.S. bank account.- (only)

And that’s the reason they are suggesting us to ask somebody from Singapore to open a PayPal account for us. We get another “WAIT” for the feature to be available in Malaysia. 🙁