I am transferring US dollars from my bank in the US to an account in Nepalese rupees in Nepal. I recently found out you can use Paypal (technically Xoom, through Paypal) to wire money internationally. However, I noticed the currency conversion spread Paypal uses seems to me to be somewhat steep. If I recall, when I looked yesterday the average rate of Nepalese rupees to dollars was around 131/1, and Paypal was giving me something like 129/1, which would result in a loss of about $300 on a transfer of around $10,000. My question is, would it be any cheaper to go to the bank branch itself in the US and transfer it that way? What kind of currency spread to banks use when conducting international wires themselves?

A domestic (California) ride-hailing platform The King of Bumfuckistan, now living in secret exile, has a bunch of money he'd like to deposit into my Paypal account for safekeeping, and for which he'll give me 6 of his wives and 14 camels. The money MUST be a wire transfer from his bank.

Can I just use the direct deposit routing and account numbers displayed on the https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/bundle/vba?intent=eip-ui .

If not, is there another way? I just have the basic no-frills paypal account.