Category: Business

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Business Credit Cards Monetization PayPal

UnionBank leverages EON’s PayPal capabilities

UnionBank promoting PayPal and EON/VISA Electron CyberAccounts.

Quick to notice how Filipino bloggers and online entrepreneurs have been signing up for their EON/VISA Electron CyberAccount, UnionBank now has a specific page that promotes the use of PayPal in the Philippines, through their EON/VISA Electron debit cards than can be funded with money sent through Paypal.

After PayPal has allowed full capabilities for Filipino users, bloggers were first to sign up for EON cards to check its compatibility with PayPal.

With UnionBank’s aggressive marketing of its EON card’s PayPal capabilities, it wouldn’t be surprising if other banks will follow suit pretty soon. BPI already has their own debit card in Express Cash, which we’re still to check if it can be used with PayPal or any online transactions in general.

I just signed up for my own EON VISA Electron before UnionBank decides to increase their reasonble 350 peso annual fee.

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Business Credit Cards Monetization PayPal

PayPal Philippines: How to withdraw money to your credit card

I’m sure you already know that you can now utilize full functionality for PayPal here in the Philippines — meaning you can use it not just for making payments but also for receiving funds. Immediately, budding online entrepreneurs took full advantage of this new option to further expand their business.

However though, a question was almost immediately raised, in chorus: “How do we get our funds off PayPal and use as real Philippine peso?”

Thanks to the persistence of fellow bloggers like Jozzua, we have now confirmed several options for receiving payments from PayPal and to your local credit card. Yes, just your locally–issued credit card.

The more popular option as of now is UnionBank’s EON Visa Electron, which we also mentioned before. It is the cheaper and simpler choice, it being a debit card. Getting one is much easier with less requirements unlike a credit card, and you can get one now for only 350 pesos a year. Charles over at NiervaDotCom details how he activated his EON card for PayPal, and confirms transferring funds from PayPal to the EON Visa Electron card.

Even better news now is that HSBC credit cards can also be used to get funds from PayPal. Another local blogger checked this and successfully used an HSBC Mabuhay Miles Visa Classic credit card. He provides details on how to transfer the funds from PayPal to the card, and even offers how to actually receive it as cash.

Important reminders: there are several caveats to all this.

  • Everytime you transfer money from PayPal to a local credit card, there is $5 USD transfer fee. That’s significant money, unless you’re moving several hundred dollars or more than a thousand.
  • If you use the “cash advance” route offered by HSBC (and maybe other credit card companies), they charge you an arm for money that’s actually yours. HSBC charges 300 pesos per cash advance withdrawal, something they try to make you believe is a simple ATM withdrawal — it isn’t. Better use the overpayment option instead.
  • All these transactions do take several business days before you physically get hold of your cash, so take it into account especially if you need your money to be available on specific dates.

My advice: use your PayPal funds to cover your credit card payments. Less worries, since it will only be a one–step process. But you still take the five dollar hit though. We should be thankful still, as we now truly have PayPal!

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Business Monetization

Receive Money Using PayPal in the Philippines

This is rather late news, but just the same, you’d be pleased to know that you can now accept funds through PayPal, even if you’re here in the Philippines. This is the official stuff, not some questionable workaround to get around international money laws. Local freelancers engaging business with foreign clients are very excited as this opens a new world of opportunities.

A fellow blogger further explains how we can transfer funds from a PayPal account to a local credit/debit card, meaning you can actually get your money in cash, if need be. UnionBank’s EON card is reasonably priced at 350 pesos a year, and considering the advantages it offers, is a very good value.

Lastly, Abe lists down the top 10 places for using your new PayPal account, a good way to open your horizons to more revenue sources.

Now isn’t it nice that we finally have PayPal here in the Philippines?

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AdSense Business News Things That Blogging Bought

Pinoy problogger buys a Toyota Vios!

Toyota Vios.

Jumping across my favorite local blogs, I chanced upon fellow WP hacker Kates Gasis’ blog, one which I haven’t visited for several weeks now. One of his recent entries mentions Linkworth, a service better known for text link advertising and search engine marketing. Recently, Linkworth has released four new products to complement its core services: LinkPost, LinkInTxt, LinkArt & LinkDir, this according to Kates’ entry.

Worth noting though is his little side remark regarding these services, at the very last paragraph:

These are 4 new ways to earn a little online. It might be little but it bought me a brand new car.

Among local bloggers doing this professionally, perhaps Kates is the very first to buy a brand new car with his online earnings! He was quick to reply on my comment on the specific model: a Toyota Vios, easily more than half a million pesos. He’s now one of a few who publicly acknowledged buying a car through blogging, like yuga and irawan.

So what’s next for the Filipino professional bloggers?

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Business Commentary Link Building

Buying & Selling Links

Should you really buy links? This is a raging debate among professional bloggers and SEO practitioners since the act of “giving a link” used to simply be a passge of information. However, Google’s Pagerank and system itself is highly dependent on links to and from several sites across the web. The way their system works has led to the assumption that linking as a form of business is bad or at least unethical, something countered by other prominent people on the web.

Google engineer Matt Cutts discussed this issue last year on his weblog, suggesting that Google is not particularly happy with the practice of buying and selling links. Threadwatch’s Nick Wilson (now with Performancing) found it rather arrogant that google would tell publishers how to do business and operate their sites.

My take? Buying and selling text links works in a moderated situation. You should never sell links on your site to “bad neighborhoods,” or resources that are dubious or do not provide value to your reader base. Buying links on other sites is a personal call, but one I’d rather avoid if possible. In fact, I haven’t done this for my sites at all.

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Business Commentary Links

Business blogging

These days, every business sector is busy jumping on the blogging bandwagon armed with overflowing enthusiasm. Unfortunately, some are clueless about the medium, and their excitement causes them to break some common rules on weblog ethics. Before you enter the business blogging atmosphere, remember these 10 things.

Business blogging can be very effective if done the right way.