When recieving payment in other currencies, Avoid currency conversion in PayPal. Accept the payment in other currency and withdraw.
When a client makes a payment in a currency that is not the primary currency for the account, PayPal allows it to convert into the primary currency. Avoid such currency conversion in PayPal.
Every Indian who receive payments in PayPal complains about their exchange rates. If you are one of those, do check out the PayPal alternatives as well.
When PayPal Offers Multiple Currency Conversions?
There is a primary currency of receiving money associated with an account. Typically it is USD.
Depending on the country of residence, there is a withdrawal currency as well. For me, in India, it is Indian Rupees.
The best part of PayPal is, your account can have a primary currency in USD, but it allows multiple balances in each supported currency. One of the main reasons why everyone blogger and freelancer should have a PayPal account.
As I can accept payment in any currency other than USD, like pounds, Australian dollar, etc. When someone receives payment in those currencies, PayPal offers an option to convert them to the primary currency.
Let me share a recent incidence of PayPal currency conversion.
How to Avoid Currency Conversions in PayPal
A UK client sent me PayPal payment in GBP. When accepting the amount instead of converting the payment in USD, accept the payment in GBP only. Add an additional currency balance in my account and kept the payment in GBP balance.
The reason to be doing it is, I had 163.17 GBP in my PayPal account. When converting GBP to USD, PayPal interface shows it will give me 251.58 USD.
In the currency converter form of PayPal, 251.58 USD and 163.17 GBP does not give the same amount in Indian Rupees.
The amount of 251.58 USD converts to ~12,306 Indian Rupees but 163.17 GBP gets me ~12,622 Indian Rupees.
When one receives money in PayPal, it is quite intuitive to convert into the primary currency. Ideally, one should always avoid doing it.
To accept the payment in the new currency, add that currency to your PayPal account. Then withdraw from the other currency balance to the Indian bank account.
As shown in the image below, this is what I did without converting the GBP Balance to USD.
Final Thoughts
Avoid currency conversion in PayPal. It is the only way to get the most out of the money you receive in PayPal. I am sure it will help the fellow Indian freelancers and bloggers get a few extra bucks out of PayPal.
