Having both a bank account and credit card is not mandatory however, if you want to use your account as intended, it's a good idea to have both. You can easily setup a PayPal account and receive money but, without a bank account and/or credit card, you will have limits on your account for both sending and withdraws. It's kind of like a test drive for checking out what you can do with PayPal - should you really want to use this service, then moving forward, you should link a bank account and card - why, by doing so provides proof of ID that you are who you say you are - in exchange, PayPal removes your sending and withdraw limits and now you use your account as intended.
