How to Use PayPal (A Basic Guide for Filipinos)

Tagalog Version (Click Here)

While PayPal has been around since 1998 and grew into an international giant (with the help of eBay until 2015) in the year 2000s, it’s only in the last few years that online payment and online shopping has gotten popular in the Philippines. For example, Bayad Center, one of the Philippines’ most popular bill payment companies partnered with Paypal just last 2016.

With online shopping websites like Lazada and Shopee getting more and more popular in the Philippines, it’s about time we write a simple guide about PayPal, one of the most popular and secure online payment systems in the world. This (the Tagalog version, specifically) will likely be very useful for Filipinos who are new to online payment systems and they simply want a quick guide for PayPal.

How to Use PayPal (A Beginner’s Guide for Filipinos)

What can you do with PayPal?

• Online shopping payment (Lazada, Shopee, Amazon, BayadCenter, etc.).
• Send and receive money from friends and family (here and abroad).
• Pay for items and services online (e.g. Sending a payment to a freelancer, caterer, etc.).
• Setup a PayPal business account for your business. This will allow you to send invoices if you’re asking for payment from clients.

By the way, like most other financial services, PayPal also charges small fees for most transactions. It’s similar to how withdrawing from ATMs or how sending money through Western Union or Cebuana Lhuillier has fees too.

In any case, PayPal is pretty secure and it offers some good protection for paypal users, buyers, and sellers, and you can check them out here on this link.

How to register for a PayPal account:

You need an email address and a credit or debit card linked to a bank account (Visa, Mastercard, etc.).

You can register for free as long as you have a secure email address like a gmail, hotmail/outlook, yahoo mail, or something else (you can add more email addresses later anyway). Just click on the “Sign up” button and input your account details to create one.

(Update as of 2021) Aside from those, PayPal now asks for a valid government-issued ID, such as an SSS UMID, a driver’s license, or a Passport. Still, according to one PayPal customer support representative you won’t really need it and the Debit Card/Credit Card/Bank Account verification is far more important. For example, when registering for an account, my friend put her Postal ID info under the “National ID” drop down.

Once you’ve registered for a PayPal account, you will then need to link your credit or debit card and/or bank account to it and THEN verify your account.

To verify your account, PayPal will charge around P100 (Philippine PayPal accounts) from your bank account. It will show a 4-digit code in your billing records, and you can use that to verify your account. They’ll return the money once you finish the verification process.

Once that’s done, Congratulations! You should now have a working PayPal account!

By the way, you can add up to eight email addresses and they can all receive money from other people. I personally use a different email if I want to receive money meant for my blog. For example, if you want to donate money to YourWealthyMind.com, you can try sending your donation to admin@youwealthymind.com. (Thank you in advance!)

My Tip: For a personal PayPal account, I suggest using a gmail, yahoo, or hotmail/outlook/microsoft account instead of an email address provided to you by your workplace. After all, you might lose access to that email address and your PayPal account once you decide to leave that company. Aside from that, office emails can usually be accessed by others in your company and some people might do something with your money in your account.

Recommended Credit and Debit Cards for PayPal:

You can use major credit and debit cards for your PayPal account. They include cards with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express capabilities, and this includes the GCash Mastercard if you can get one for your GCash account. By the way, ordinary ATM cards (which most Filipinos have) usually won’t work.

In the Philippines, if you have a savings account, most large banks like Unionbank, BPI, BDO, Landbank, and several others can provide credit or debit cards upon request. Just talk to your bank’s account managers and ask. You’ll need to register for one to use PayPal anyway. If you don’t have a bank account, a GCash account with a GCash Mastercard would also work.

Aside from cards from banks, there’s also something called a YAZZ Prepaid Card that’s Visa powered and you can also use it for PayPal like a debit card from a bank.

How to purchase things online and pay through PayPal :

Instead of spending hours commuting or driving through traffic to buy from brick and mortar stores, have you ever thought of buying things online and have them delivered directly to your house? If you’ve ever considered it, remember that you can use PayPal to shop in most large online stores like Lazada, Shopee, Amazon, eBay, and more!

1. Login to your account on the online store (register if you don’t have an account yet).
2. Search for the thing you want to buy.
3. Click on the “Buy now” or “Add to cart” button.
4. On “Checkout” or “Place order now” and select PayPal as your payment method. It should open a new window.
5. Login to your PayPal account to confirm payment. It should return you to the previous website to confirm your purchase and delivery.

PayPal will use the money in your bank account or PayPal balance to pay for your items and you should also receive a confirmation email containing transaction numbers and delivery details. That should serve as your receipt. Depending on the online shopping website that you used, you should be able to track the delivery of your package.

How to use PayPal to pay bills (in the Philippines):

1. First, go to www.BayadCenter.com and then click on “Online Bills Payment”. It should send you to “domestic.bayadcenteronline.com” if you’re in the Philippines, or “international.bayadcenteronline.com” if you are in another country.
2. There, you can select the category of bills you want to pay, like electricity bills, water bills, cellular phone bills, and more.
3. Click on the category you need to pay for, click the company, enter the required information like account numbers, names, and more. Enter the amount to pay (and additional instructions if necessary), double-check all the details, and when you’re ready, click on “Add to Cart”.
4. On your “Shopping Cart” (on the upper-right corner) or checkout, select Paypal for payment.

You should also receive a confirmation email containing transaction numbers. That should serve as your receipt.

(Note: Bayad Center also accepts other payment methods like major debit/credit cards and more.)

How to send money using PayPal:

In the Philippines, you usually queue at a shop like Western Union, Cebuana Lhuilier, LBC, or some other similar shop to send money to distant relatives. You won’t need to do that any longer if you learn to send money using PayPal (and the one you’re sending should also have their own PayPal account).

1. Login to your PayPal account.
2. On your dashboard or “Summary”, look for “Tools” and click on “Send money”.
3. You can send money to pay for goods and services, send to friends and family, or make a mass payment. Choose what you need.
4. Enter the receiver’s email address, amount, type of currency, which account balance you want to use (PayPal balance or card/bank account balance), and all other required information.
5. Send the money!

How to receive money through PayPal:

If you want to receive money from someone living in another country (not the Philippines), chances are, they’ll send it through PayPal.

Just tell them your PayPal email address and wait for them to send it. You’ll see it in your PayPal balance once you receive it.

You can also receive money through your PayPal.ME profile. You need to create one and once you do, you’ll be able to use a link like this to receive money (here’s YourWealthyMind’s link as an example): https://paypal.me/YourWealthyMind

What is your “PayPal Balance”:

Take note that when you receive money from other people, it’ll be in your PayPal balance and not your bank account. You need to click on “Withdraw funds” and transfer it FROM your PayPal Balance and send it TO your preferred card or bank account. If you registered for a business account on PayPal, you’ll need to do this to withdraw your cash.

REMEMBER: Most transactions will have some small transaction fees (just like withdrawing ATMs, sending money through LBC, etc.).

By the way, one more tip. Since I personally make a lot of online purchases, I keep a lot of money I received through PayPal in my PayPal balance for future online purchases. I do that to minimize fees and bad exchange rates, and I only withdraw when I need to.

Globe GCash: “Cash-In” to Withdraw Money

If you have linked your PayPal account to your GCash app account, you can transfer your PayPal balance there. If you received dollars (USD) or any other currency, you have to turn it into Philippine Pesos (PHP) using PayPal’s “Manage Currencies” system first. After that, you can Cash-in to GCash and then “Cash-Out” to withdraw your money from partner stores.

Read GCash’s guide here for a their list of partners.

*Note: If you’re having trouble withdrawing the money from PayPal into your GCash account (Cash-in) even after currency conversion, you can try re-linking your PayPal account. Just go to Profile>My Linked Accounts>PayPal. Click Link and agree, click Authorize, Login to your PayPal account, and finish the two-factor authentication to redo the link. I’ve had that withdrawal error before and re-linking it solved the issue.

That’s all for most of the basics of PayPal. There’s more to it, like setting up business accounts, sending invoices for services, and a few others. If you want to learn more details, I suggest that you read PayPal’s guides on their main website.

Thank you for reading!

By the way, if you want to learn more about stuff like personal finance, self-improvement, and other helpful guides, you can check out our other articles here by clicking on this link (or on the links below)!