Why the uber-restricted launch of Paypal Philippines?

A lot of people were ecstatic with the news that Paypal has now added the Philippines on its list of supported countries. However, the inclusion was far from what we’re expecting. It’s even far from a half-baked launch.

The limited Paypal access only allows users from the Philippines to sign up for a Paypal account and add their US-accepted credit cards to top up their account. That means one can only send money and it has to come thru your credit card — that’s it.

You can’t even transfer from a bank account so if you don’t have any credit card, your Paypal account is basically useless. You can’t receive funds either so what’s the point?

The only other way I see this working now is if you’re a spender and the merchant you are paying only accepts Paypal. How about freelancers, designers, programmers and netrepreneurs? Will they be able to use their newly signed-up Paypal account and proudly paste that Verified Paypal badge on their website? Nope.

I think it will even confuse and frustrate their potential clients — with all the hooplah that Paypal is available in the Philippines only to find out that they can’t actually pay them enterprising Filipinos thru Paypal.

I guess this restrited launch only means one thing — eBay doesn’t trust the Philippines yet. They still think we’re just a bunch of fraudsters and hackers and I can’t blame them. Yeah, the risks still outweighs the benefits.

For the meantime, let’s just stick to what really works — Xoom.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

23 Comments

Miguel says:

19 years ago

Good editorial. Maybe we could ask the eBay guys coming over?
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JC John SESE Cuneta says:

19 years ago

I doubt they’ll be able to do much. I learned that PayPal have more autonomity, a model which is getting popular among businesses instead of literal 100% domination.

Much more, country-branches have almost close to 0% voice with their parent company, especially in our case where we still have to pass lots of international banking criterias and what not.

It’s useless, more like an insult to me
“PayPal: Bah, give them registration and nothing else, so they will keep quiet. It’s not hurting and will not hurt our image and business anyway.”
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The Ca t says:

19 years ago

imho, the pp people are just being ubercareful. they recently pay a big sum of money for a class suit action. besides, their website is easily replicated, as i am a paypal subscriber myself, once a month, i get this bogus letter asking me to update my account. they already have included the credit card requirement aside from the bank account because bank accounts can be closed but the credit card will continue to bill even if it is already closed. all the credit card company is to send the bill to the collector.

if you will not look closely, the url address you are directed to is almost similar to paypal. the notice is so urgent that you would fall for this scam.
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Sidney says:

19 years ago

I might have given you this link in the past:

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

My experience with paypal is bad. I completely with The Cat, those people are ubercareful.

To tell you the story, I didn’t made any transaction for several months. This was enough for them to shut down my account. They requested so many papers (per fax ! ) to reopen my account that I gave up.
There is no communication possible with them. They work with automated emails. You can’t respond to those emails! They just don’t want to listen to you.

As long as you don’t get any problem it is a nice way to pay and receive money but once you got a problem you are at their mercy. You can’t do anything !

Yes, in my view Paypal sucks!
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nina says:

19 years ago

I’m one of the minority who’s rejoicing about this. Then again, I’m one of those spenders who buy from sellers who only accept Paypal payments.

I’m not even complaining about the $100 sending limit…at least it stops me from spending too much ;)
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Kiven says:

19 years ago

Xoom for teh win!
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mlq3 says:

19 years ago

i think it’s as simple as the philippines still being on international money laundering watch lists.
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elmer says:

19 years ago

I believe the problem could also be with the RP banking systems, it’s to complicated you’ve end up very frustrated (maybe this is what PP is experienced). In the US or EU countries the flow of transcations between businesses specifically finance institutions are more controlled, if you try to do something hunky panky and get cought then be prepare to face the “REAL” consequences. But, unfortunately in RP’s banking system the good/honest guys gets all the frustrations and missed opportunities but the bad guys get away with it (paging mr. pidal).

@6
xoom suck too, it asked/required a valid driver’ license. i entered my PA valid driver’s lic. it brings up an invalid D.L error message, what the fun!! im thinking how these guys validate dl anyway?

@3.
That’s smells like phish

Maybe this would help, send money using your phone
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Philtradex says:

19 years ago

I too was long awaiting Paypal in the Philippines. It is killing any kinda of open trade when you can not get money to the other party. I know that there are other payment systems out there but it is a real pain to have like 5 accounts to send money around the globe. Hope google figures this one out. The only possible problem with google I see is if they get to big, that will be another problem in the making. Another Dictator like Microsoft.
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Gloria says:

19 years ago

for me at the moment moneybookers.com works really swell. ;-)
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