South African exchange control regulations

[trippygrape]

Hello fellow humans and non humans

Today i received an email from Paypal stating the following:

... Now that you are using PayPal to receive payments, you should be aware of the following important South African exchange control regulations:

1.Funds you receive via PayPal cannot be sent to other PayPal users or used to fund any other purchases.
2. You must withdraw the received funds from your PayPal balance to a South African bank account within 30 days of receiving these funds.

To help you easily withdraw funds from your PayPal account to your South African bank account, we have partnered with First National Bank (FNB). Together, we created the FNB Withdraw Service with PayPal, which requires you to open a free FNB Online Banking Profile. ...

i have quite a bit of money in my PayPal account in GBP, to transfer it to FNB i have to convert it to USD as that is the only currency FNB accepts with Paypal, as i understand. Then i have to pay another fee for the move from Paypal to FNB.

So my question is, should i move my moneys to my South African bank or keep it in Paypal ?
How serious is this and why are they doing this?

Thanks

 

[Leo Kowalski]

I think keep it in Paypal, they are not allowed to take your money out of Paypal

 

[kidnotorious]

Disclaimer - I am not FAIS compliant or registered with the Financial Services Board

In general the idea is to liquidate whatever foreign currency you have and give you the Rand equivalent. Because you unlikely dont have a Paypal US$ account, FNB is likely to simply directly convert GBP to ZAR at whatever the bid rate on the GBPZAR rate is on the day. Failing that they will do GBP to USD and then USD to ZAR which is how the direct GBP to ZAR rate is calculated anyway.

 

[msmoorad]

i got a new Capitec Debit card that allows online purchasing
i completed the Securecode setup part

now, when i try to set up my Paypal account, it says that my bank declined the request
contacted Paypal, they say its not their fault-have to contact Capitec & ask them to sort it out.

anyways, what i want to know is this:
im going to sell something to a person in the US

he will pay me via PayPal in US$
can i use those US$ now & buy something from Amazon.com?


thats the part i need explained

just say i got paid US$250
and i want to buy a Kindle Fire HD for US$120

how much will i be charged in bank charges & other transaction fees?

 

[jansdejager]

Change your country. You can even have a different country's credit card registered that way (but this may sour if it is a SA credit card).

Paypal? More like Paywall!