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PayPal offers small businesses a debit card option through Mastercard with cash back. Could it be the right fit for you?
The humble debit card isn’t considered one of the sexier financial instruments around, but PayPal aims to challenge this perception with the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard. It’s a debit card that gives you cash back for your business spending.
But how exactly does the PayPal Business Debit Card work? What fees does it have? And, so the advantages of using the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard outweigh the disadvantages?
Here’s everything you need to know before getting a PayPal Business Debit Card.
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The PayPal Business Debit Card is a debit card tied to your PayPal business accounts. This means you can make debit purchases directly from your business’s PayPal sales while also earning cashback for spending.
Businesses looking to cut out the middleman and make purchases directly from their PayPal business accounts can easily obtain the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard. This card earns 1% cash back on all eligible purchases. It can be used wherever Mastercard is accepted.
The PayPal Business Debit Card is linked directly to your PayPal business account. You can make purchases from the card and make ATM withdrawals for a fee. When you use your PayPal Business Debit Card, you get a unique 1% cash-back reward that you usually only see with credit cards. The cashback will automatically get added as a credit to your PayPal balance “weekly as qualifying transactions settle.”
This cashback perk sets the card apart and makes it a great fit for businesses with established PayPal Business Accounts.
You can manage your card completely in the PayPal app.
Because this is a debit card that allows you to spend and withdraw funds from your PayPal business account, there are no credit score requirements whatsoever. All you need to get the card is a PayPal business account that is not currently under any restrictions.
To get the PayPal Business Debit Card, simply log into your PayPal business account, visit the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard page, and click on the button marked Get Started. You’ll then need to provide some basic financial information. Once your debit card has been activated, you’ll be able to enroll in the card’s cash-back program (this does not incur any additional costs).
You’ll be earning 1% cash back on every eligible purchase when you use the card.
Note that you won’t earn any cashback on ATM withdrawals, nor will you earn any cash back for PIN transactions. That’s why you’ll need to run your purchases as credit card transactions to earn cash back.
You can also earn over 50,000+ business rebates for certain purchases using the Mastercard Easy Savings program.
While the 1% cash back earning rate is great for a debit card, it’s not very impressive when compared to the cashback earning rate of the best business credit cards. If you’re specifically looking for a debit card to use for business spending, the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard stands out among the crowd. However, if you’re not restricting yourself to debit cards, you’ll want to consider the superior rewards programs of the leading business credit cards — as well as the limitations inherent to debit cards — when making your decision.
You can link your PayPal account directly to your business bank account, so you don’t even need to carry a PayPal balance to make purchases and receive cash back using the card.
Your cash back is calculated weekly and then automatically credited to your PayPal account.
Business owners who prefer to receive cash back automatically without having to remember to redeem it themselves will appreciate this simple reward redemption method.
The cashback you earn will never expire. Note, however, that if you don’t use your debit card for 12 months, you’ll no longer be eligible to earn cash back, and you’ll have to re-activate the cashback program to start earning cashback with your purchases again.
You’ll enjoy some basic benefits with your PayPal Business Debit Mastercard, though the benefits package can’t compare to what you’ll get with a high-end business credit card, nor will you find such perks as a signup bonus.
The PayPal Business Debit Mastercard’s lack of an annual fee means that you won’t have to weigh the cash back you earn against the cost of having the card. Of course, this is just a debit card, and considering the modest level of benefits and perks available, the lack of an annual fee is perhaps to be expected.
Each time you make an ATM withdrawal, you’ll be contending with a $1.50 ATM withdrawal fee (this is on top of whatever fee is being charged by the ATM owner). And if a signature is required for your cash withdrawal, you’ll pay a $3 fee. If you’re going overseas, be aware that you’ll be paying a $1.50 withdrawal fee and a 1% foreign transaction fee on what you take out.
With these withdrawal fees, you probably won’t want to make frequent withdrawals with the card. That’s quite unfortunate, as that’s one of the main reasons to have a debit card, but if you don’t plan to make many withdrawals or earn enough cash-back to offset these fees, then this debit card would still be a good choice.
The PayPal Business Debit Mastercard has a few things going for it for small business owners.
If you’re specifically looking for a debit card that offers cash back on your business purchases, you’ll find that here — and the unlimited 1% cash back you’ll be earning will automatically get deposited into your account each week without any input required from you. Additionally — and this is an undersold benefit — you’ll be able to instantly transfer funds between your bank account and your PayPal account without paying any fees.
If you use the card to make frequent ATM withdrawals with any frequency, you may end up losing much of the cashback value you earn to ATM fees. Furthermore, you won’t see much in the way of extraneous business benefits with this card, but you will still get some travel benefits and additional business purchase rebates with the Mastercard Easy Savings program.
For businesses that have an active Business PayPal account, this debit card option could definitely be a good solution for easy and quick access to your PayPal funds.
If you are looking for a better debit card option, take a look at the best business checking accounts, or if you want a credit card with great cashback, check out the best business reward credit cards for more finance management options.
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