Shopee has split the balance in your ShopeePay wallet into two categories, namely transferable and non-transferable. With the new policy, it seems that the platform is preventing users from cashing out their balance from credit card realods.
From now onwards, top-ups in the ShopeePay made using credit cards will be deemed non-transferable, which means that you can neither withdraw them to a bank account nor transfer them to another user through P2P transfers. The same policy also applies for any cashbacks you have in your balance.
With the new limitations, non-transferable funds can now only be used to make offline and online payments to merchants. You can view the balance for both categories by going into your ShopeePay wallet, tapping on “Transfer”, choose a recipient, and open up the “?” icon to get the balance overview.
Of course, the change won’t affect the things you can do with your transferable balance, which includes reloads from debit cards, cash, and online banking along with funds you receive from other users. When making payments using the e-wallet, ShopeePay will first deduct funds from your non-transferable balance before touching your transferable balance.
Users have been known to use e-wallets with cashout features to avoid paying cash advance fees from their credit cards. Last year, Touch ‘n Go eWallet also introduced a non-transferable fund category to curb credit card payouts, although they did still allow credit card reloads to be transferable up to RM5,000 — starting 22 March 2023, a 1% fee will be imposed on credit card balance transfers exceeding RM1,000.
On the other hand, AirAsia-owned e-wallet BigPay doesn’t have non-transferable funds but instead, it limits credit card reloads to RM10,000 per month with a 1% fee on reloads exceeding RM1,000 per month. Regarding more recent news with ShopeePay, the e-wallet can now be used as a payment method for Apple’s App Store and services.
(Source: Shopee)
