I have just started using paypal. I am mainly using this account for international pamyents. If anyone if anyone is familiar with paypal I wanted to know what is the best setting that can I do in my paypal account to minimize the deduction that happens during international payments. I did some freelancing in which the client paid me 10 USD and it charged me around 0.87$(~9%) as a fee. And then I am converting the USD to INR so it again charges me the conversion fee for this. So basically the sender sent me 750Rs but I finally got 650Rs in my account. So overall it charged 14% which is very high

I’m not sure you could do much with that if I’m not mistaken. If possible, switch to Transferwise for receiving payments. A lot of members here use it and can vouch for it.

Okay. How much does Transferwise charges any idea?

Transferwise has a transparent homepage where it shows you exactly what you will receive even before the sender sends the money. Ask the sender to send the payments with a mode that has a fine balance between speed and fees. I always ask for paying using debit cards when the payment is from the US.

PayPal has the worst rates in the business and you should use it in the last case in case nothing else is working out. You can try Payoneer which gives you a virtual US and UK bank account and the fees comes to 2% AFAIK. The rates are also decent though if you link it up to an EEFC account, then the USD passes through to India and gets converted in your Indian bank where the rates are like 25-35p per USD

Thanks @hundreds-winter-88791 for the advice. I will try Payoneer and Transferwise. @loud-glass-33663 Is the virtual bank account linked to our Indian bank account? And the money once received in the virtual bank gets converted to indian currency and gets transferred to our Indian account automatically?

My order of preference is this: Transferwise, Xoom, Payoneer, Paypal.

If client doesn't mind doing direct wire transfer (usually they're fine if it is a long term project), you can share your bank account with SWIFT/IBAN code as that will save on conversion quite a lot.

@strong-optician-91782 Yes. That is correct. Hope this screenshot helps explain it - you can add upto 2 bank accounts (if you want) and choose where the money should come. I have only 1 setup - so it comes automatically to the account. Note: It is an EEFC account, so I get paid in USD. If yours is not an EEFC account, Payoneer will convert to INR and deposit to your bank. Similar to what Transferwise does.

Thanks, @loud-glass-33663. I understood it. So EEFC account charges less for conversion like your said 25-35 paisa per dollar, right?

@strong-optician-91782 at the time I got it 4-5 years ago - yes. That was the case. However, since then, lots of folks have mentioned that they get this even with their regular current account. So best to confirm with your bank. I think savings still has the worse conversion rate (Rs. 1.5-3 per USD) so getting a current / EEFC account is recommended.

Okay. I will use the corporate current acc

@loud-glass-33663 Thanks for letting us know about Payoneer. How much are their fees when customer pays USD with credit card & you get remittance into your EEFC account?

@helpful-gigabyte-47939 Hey - charges are mentioned here: https://www.payoneer.com/in/about/fees/

So I checked Transferwise and it charges around 11% fee for the overall transaction as compared to Paypal's 14% fee. Those who are using Transferwise please confirm is it the right rate?

@strong-optician-91782 Looks like Transferwise doesn't even work for Indian businesses (see screenshot). Maybe people here are using it for inward transfers into personal accounts. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

@brief-scooter-54095 Correct. People use it to just receive money. Have you tried Payoneer?

Not yet. Will try it out soon.

Okay. Let us know the your experience whenever you try it