Jimbo said
Maybe you're not quite understanding all about paypal. I think I can easily have local bank accounts all over the world and
then > link them to Paypal for transfers.
If that is so, you're right I did not understand that. Paypal tells me that in order to transfer money from my private bank account (without using a credit card) I should send the money to a Dutch branch of the Bank of America, so I figured that charging a Paypal account of a US citizen would involve transferring the money to a bank in the US directly. (For those who did not follow this thread, we are not talking about transfer between two Paypal accounts).
In the Netherlands we have four banks that operate worldwide and are in the world top 50 (ABN-AMRO is the largest), but because Paypal uses a Dutch branch of the Bank of America that may be a logical choice. Citibank has a large office in Amsterdam as well.
Still I think Germany would be a better start for a non US bank account, due to its size and number of wikipedians there. It would still be a worthwile undertaking even if it could not service as an inlet for donations from other EU countries.
Erik Zachte