Highly Recommended: Al Rajhi Visa Debit Card

All Internet marketers and monetized blogs owners were eager to get their money out of PayPal to have a merry time, especially here in Malaysia where our Muslim friends celebrated the Muslim New Year - Hari Raya on Oct. 13 & 14. More so when all the while, prior to this PayPal development, Malaysians could not withdraw money from their PayPal accounts.

I was very eager too. So, on Tuesday my Internet marketing buddy M. and I went to Al Rajhi Bank in the new town centre of Bandar Puteri where many banks gather. There we obtained Visa debit card for free and opened a savings account each with the minimum amount of RM20 ($6).

The debit card which came with the savings account, will be billed RM22 ($6) on the anniversary of its date of issuance, which means you use first for one year before paying anything.

The Visa Debit-enabled ATM Card gives you 24-hour ATM access at Al Rajhi Bank ATMs and ATMs displaying the Visa PLUS sticker. Apart from being able to be used to accept PayPal's payments, you may use it to pay for things directly from your account at millions of Visa-accepted locations worldwide.

Also the Al Rajhi Savings Account-i, as it is called, is ideal for all your fundamental banking needs. It offers you Internet banking facilities and phone banking to easily manage fund transfers, bill payments and balance enquiries. The brochure says it takes RM200 ($56) to open one but at the moment the requirement has been drastically relaxed to RM20 ($6).

By the way, Al Rajhi Bank is a Saudi Arabian bank which is the largest Islamic bank in the world with a paid-up capital of SR 4,500,000,000. Malaysia marks their first foray into the international retail banking market and it's a highly significant development in the 50 over years history of the bank.

When I came home with the Visa debit card, I added it to my PayPal account under add a card. Then I tried as an experiment to withdraw US$10, the minimum withdrawal allowed, from my PayPal account to the debit card.

Things went like clockwork and PayPal's statement on its website says it has withheld $5 as transaction fee and forwarded $5 to my debit card. However, I will have to wait a week before the money is cleared for withdrawal at the ATM.

But my poor ole buddy M. had a problem with his debit card. The PayPal system could not detect his card. Don't know what went wrong. Maybe it's a matter of having to key in the data carefully and according to instructions. Well, that will certainly be sorted out I'm sure.