Personal Features

WorldFirst

50

50

WorldFirst offers international money transfer services for individuals. They also offer tools for business clients.

What WorldFirst offers individuals

  • International money transfers
  • Forward contracts
  • Firm orders
  • Rate alerts
  • Personal account managers
  • Mobile apps for Android and Apple
  • Regular transfers

WorldFirst does not offer individuals

  • Access to multi-currency accounts (World Account) to individuals
  • Foreign currency optimised travel debit cards

PayPal

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33

PayPal provides different services for personal customers from a number of countries. However, the services on offer vary from one region to another. PayPal's consumer product is a digital wallet where the customer's ID can be their email address and phone number. PayPal customers can send money to each other's digital wallets quickly and easily. The PayPal digital wallet can be connected to a bank account and debit or credit cards. This allows customers to withdraw available funds to their bank accounts. Connecting their bank cards allows customers to buy goods and services on e-commerce stores where PayPal is accepted as a payment method. 

What PayPal does

  • International money transfers.
  • Debit and prepaid cards.
  • PayPal Credit.
  • Links multiple payment methods to your account to shop online.
  • Digital wallet to hold funds in multiple currencies.

What PayPal doesn’t do

  • Dedicated account managers.
  • Risk management tools.
  • Cash pickup.

WorldFirst wins!

WorldFirst scores better in the Personal Features category.

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Winner

Business Benefits

WorldFirst

89

89

WorldFirst has an excellent offering for business and promotes partnerships with businesses operating in a global environment. There are solutions for online sellers, import / export and global human resources payments.

What WorldFirst offers business

  • Multi-currency receiving accounts
  • Forward contracts
  • Firm orders
  • Xero integration
  • Business account management

WorldFirst World Account

Through the WorldFirst World Account you can leverage unique banking details in 10 different currencies and reduce costs on receiving money from customers and paying suppliers. Local banking details are available in GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CNH, HKD, JPY, NZD, SGD and AUD.
 

What WorldFirst doesn’t offer business

  • Business debit card for foreign currency transactions from the WorldFirst World account.

PayPal

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56

PayPal for business provides a range of specialized services for businesses from different countries. Businesses can use PayPal to create and send invoices and receive payments. PayPal's merchant solution allows online sellers to accept PayPal as a payment method. Customers can use the PayPal payment gateway to buy goods or services using their PayPal account or directly with credit or debit cards. PayPal has more solutions for business accepting micro payments which may be quite useful when selling low cost products.

What PayPal for business offers

  • Make and accept international payments.
  • Solutions for online sellers.
  • Digital wallet to hold funds and transact in multiple currencies.
  • Payment gateway to accept card payments.
  • Accepts in-store payments with a card reader and a smartphone or tablet.
  • Easy accounting integration through APIs, SDKs, code samples and pre-integrated solutions.
  • Risk management through fraud and seller protection.
  • Mass payments.

What PayPal for business doesn’t do

  • Account managers.
  • Currency hedging tools.

WorldFirst wins!

WorldFirst scores better in the Business Benefits category.

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Winner

Fees & Exchange Rates

WorldFirst

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79

WorldFirst has a super simple fee structure for international money transfers. The WorldFirst fees are additional to the real exchange rate. 

WorldFirst World Account fees also have the same simple fee structure and fees only apply when withdrawing funds from virtual multi-currency accounts.

Annual Transfer Amount£0 - £500K£500K - £5M£5M+
WorldFirst Fees0.60%0.35%0.25%

WorldFirst Australia currency conversion fees for small transfers

WorldFirst Australia has introduced (March 2021) new fees for small currency conversion amounts of less that AUD$10,000. These fees can make it prohibitive for small businesses to conduct day to day business payments. 

WorldFirst Australia fixed fee for FXFee
< $2,000$20
$2,000 - $10,000$10
$10,000 +$0

PayPal

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0

PayPal fees vary based on where you live and the services on offer. Below we show sample fees for the USA. For more detailed information on fees for PayPal merchant solution, iCompareFX has created an interactive payment gateway fees comparison tool and more detailed breakdown of merchant variable and fixed fees by region.

Fees for sending money within the US

Payment methodFees
PayPal Cash, PayPal Cash Plus or a linked bank account $0
Credit card, debit card or PayPal Credit2.9% of the transfer amount, plus a fixed fee

Fees for sending money overseas

Payment methodTransaction feesFunding fees
PayPal Cash, PayPal Cash Plus or a linked bank account 5% of the transfer amount (minimum of $0.99 and maximum of $4.99)$0
Credit card, debit card or PayPal Credit.5% of the transfer amount (minimum of $0.99 and maximum of $4.99)2.9% of the transfer amount plus a fixed fee

Fees for selling

Mode of sellingFees
Selling in the US2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction
Selling internationally4.4% plus a fixed fee based on the currency received
PayPal Here card reader2.7% for card swipes, or 3.5% plus $0.15 for manually entered transactions

PayPal exchange rates

PayPal adds a margin of up to 3% on existing mid-market rates when carrying out currency conversion. Combined with the fees you need to pay, the cost of sending money overseas through PayPal becomes rather prohibitive.


WorldFirst wins!

WorldFirst scores better in the Fees and Exchange Rates category.

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Winner

Ease of Use

WorldFirst

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57

WorldFirst account creation and registration is simple and straightforward.  Unfortunately there is room for improvement in some areas:

ID verification - This can be slower outside of the UK taking up to 24 hours. 

Payment options -  Basic by only supporting bank transfer payment options. 

Mobile apps - The World Account uses a different mobile app than their international money transfer app. This can be cumbersome for account management.

Minimum transfer amount - This is quite high for individuals at $2000 / £1000. There is, however, no minimum for business clients.


PayPal

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68

What PayPal does well

Sign up - Signing up takes little time, and you may do so by using the PayPal website or app.

Payment options - You can fund your account and transfers in different ways such as bank transfers, debit cards and credit cards.

PayPal app - The PayPal app is available for iOS and Android.
 

Where PayPal could improve

Phone transfers - PayPal customers can not send money over the phone.


PayPal wins!

PayPal scores better in the Ease of Use category.

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Winner

Support & Countries

WorldFirst

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56

  • WorldFirst supports over 130+ currencies. Their website supports five unique languages. Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, French and Japanese.
  • WorldFirst World Account supports 10 currencies. That means your business can have a local banking presence in 27 countries. 
  • WorldFirst customer support is global and can be contacted by email and phone. Additionally the UK has an online chat facility.

Unfortunately, USA residents are not eligible to create a WorldFirst account. This is a major let down for WorldFirst supported countries. This point has impacted the WorldFirst supported countries iCompareFX score.


PayPal

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88

What PayPal does well

Supported countries - PayPal provides its services in more than 200 countries and territories.

Multilingual website - You can use the PayPal website in different languages.
 

Where PayPal could improve

Local phone support - PayPal could do better by providing local phone support in countries with large customer bases.


PayPal wins!

PayPal scores better in the Support and Countries category.

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Winner

Trust & Transparency

WorldFirst

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94

  • WorldFirst is fully regulated by the FCA. 
  • Client accounts are segregated from the business banking accounts.
  • Fees could not be more transparent with their simple fee structure.
  • Many online sellers and SME’s have discovered WorldFirst’s World Account to reduce their costs in the global market.
  • WorldFirst TrustPilot score has an overall rating of Excellent.

PayPal

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32

What PayPal does well

  • PayPal is licensed to provide its services in all the regions in which it operates.
  • Dispute resolution and purchase protection for buyers.

Where PayPal could improve

Customer rating - PayPal gets a rating of Bad on Trustpilot. Several PayPal reviews written by customers highlight the company's poor customer service. None of the recent reviews have been answered by PayPal. Regular PayPal complaints are related to business accounts being suspended during disputes with no notice or follow up by PayPal. This has lead to a large number of unanswered complaints on Twitter, TrustPilot and Google reviews.

Exchange rate transparency - The non-transparent exchange rate margin leaves many customers wondering about the true cost of their transfers.


WorldFirst wins!

WorldFirst scores better in the Trust and Transparency category.

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Winner

The Result

Winner ribbon iconWinner

 WorldFirst

The winner is clear.  WorldFirst takes it by a landslide.  Even though Paypal scores higher for the Ease of Use and Support and Countries categories, its poor fees and exchange rates let them down.