How to Withdraw Money From PayPal to GCash

Paypal held an event yesterday at the Manila Peninsula called the “Paypal Community Freelancer Summit”.

I was there as an attendee and I actually had no intention of blogging about it, so I didn’t take pictures. It was a well-organized event, the speakers stayed on track, and the topics they talked about were either some new learning, or something I already knew but wouldn’t hurt to be reminded of.

I attended the summit because I wanted to learn more about using PayPal. I have a PayPal account, but I barely use it. When PayPal was new, I researched and found out that there were fees to using it. People, especially freelancers who worked online jobs, had a difficult time withdrawing money from their PayPal accounts. As a consumer, I didn’t see the need to use PayPal when paying with a credit card online was just as easy.

Now, years later, I heard that PayPal was having their first summit ever (here in the Philippines, anyway), and I thought, why not hear about PayPal directly from PayPal? The topic is something I have been really curious about, and I avoided using PayPal all these years because of the fees. Also, the event was totally free. No registration fee 😀 So might as well take the opportunity to learn something and meet new people.

How to Withdraw Money From PayPal to GCash

I am not going to go through the topics discussed by the various speakers. I’ll go directly to something important I learned that I think will be useful information for those of you accepting money through Paypal.

GCash Card

There was a GCash booth at the event where attendees could get GCash cards for free. They said the regular price for a GCash card is P50.00.

The GCash card is a Mastercard, and can be used to withdraw money from any local ATM, and can also be used as a regular debit card to pay bills, make purchases, or shop online with.

PayPal

PayPal is the preferred payment method of most people who hire freelancers. They just feel safer using PayPal, and feel that there is a smaller chance of being scammed when using PayPal. So most of our freelancers in the Philippines need to open a PayPal account in order to receive payment for their work.

Now, converting that online money to actual pesos in the real world is the tricky part. Last I heard, you can withdraw PayPal funds from partner banks but there are fees up to P250 per transaction, and long waiting times, some even require over-the-counter transactions.

If you link your PayPal account to your GCash, you can easily withdraw your PayPal money to your GCash account for free. No withdrawal fees from PayPal to GCash. This is supposed to happen instantly, but other attendees told me it sometimes takes one day.

*There is no withdrawal fee from PayPal to GCash. However, don’t forget that PayPal charges fees when someone pays you. An attendee told me that for example, if someone pays you P500 on PayPal, you only receive around P480+ because of Paypal fees.

So now, all your PayPal money has been successfully transferred to GCash. Great! If you Cash Out from GCash the usual way, there’s a GCash Cash Out fee starting at P20 for the first P1,000. That can easily add up if you’re withdrawing more money.

But if you have a GCash Card, you can withdraw your GCash money from any local ATM for a flat fee of P20 per withdrawal, regardless of amount. I think that’s a heck of a lot cheaper than P20 per P1,000, especially if you’re withdrawing a big amount.

You can also transfer your GCash money to your BPI bank account, but I forgot if the fee is also a flat P20. It’s kind of a convoluted process to activate SIM mobile banking, and it involves visiting a physical ATM. You can read more here.

Blogging this for future reference before I forget! 🙂

#PayPalFreelancer