For all those who have Paypal accounts, you can now withdraw money to your bank accounts as of this writing. You might have noticed the rectangular “withdraw-money-to-your-Philippine-bank” ad when you login to your account plus the fact that emails were also sent, so no use for me harping about it as a news, I guess.

Anyway, it’s easy to register a Philippine bank account (I have registered my Union Bank’s). Just be sure to get the correct bank code. Apparently, there is a difference between a bank swift code and bank code. I think the latter is just part of Paypal’s idea of imposing its own world order because it is not some part of international banking standard. There is an official list (Paypal’s) of the bank codes and you will find it below.

I figured this out because, while registering my bank, Paypal is asking for a 9-digit bank code. See, Unionbank’s bank swift code is UBPHPHMM. That is one digit short. Fortunately I cannot argue with a computer because I would if I could. “But there’s only EIGHT!” (that sort of thing) So I googled the information that would prove Paypal wrong. Well, it turned out, there is a separate list, indeed. Woot. A number of techies blog the list. They corroborate each other so I take it as the real deal. lol. Seriously, Ebay has it.

Official Paypal Bank Code List

So:I would be trying this new alternative because withdrawing Paypal fund to my Eon eats up a lot of time. It distresses me a lot when it lets you wait several days more than the promised 7 business days transfer.