Why does PayPal take weeks longer to release funds than any other financial institution on earth?

[WayneBNorris]

21 days? Really? For payments between two members who’ve had accounts for over a decade? I used to be on the board of a $1 billion credit union, and I find that absurd.

[sharpiemarker]

@WayneBNorris 

PayPal is not a bank or credit union but an e-wallet with personal payment and sales tool functions. When senders have 180 days to dispute a payment, PayPal wants to make sure the recipient does what they are supposed to do such as ship goods/provide tracking numbers or update order status to order processed for providing services/intangibles/virtual goods. They hold the funds for 21 days to ensure the recipient doesn’t just run off with the cash on sales payments, that’s all. Doesn’t matter how old your account is.

Here’s the why in detail:

Why is my payment on hold or unavailable?

There are tasks you can do get the payment earlier:

How can I release my payment(s) on hold?

Then ask sender to confirm:

How do I confirm receipt of an item?

[WayneBNorris]

Every financial institution on earth has those constraints, snd zero of them take that long. Moreover, if someone simply sends me money, there’s no way to speed it up because no invoice… the buttons you describe do not exist for such transactions. Institutional financial insurance products are the standard way to do this; clearly PayPal is too cheap to use them. I received $3000 from this person Monday, no problem. Then $6000 Wednesday, and BANG a 21-day hold. I’m outta here. Moving exclusively to Venmo or Zelle.