PayPal for Philippine Entrepreneurs NOW!
The problem of any would-be Filipino Netrepreneur based in the Philippines is the lack of a reliable and stable online payment gateway. I personally know this since me and my friends have been trying to solve this for almost a year now. We’ve had to rely on alternative methods such as 2checkout, xoom, YOSSN, etc…
A historical tidbit: According to my buddies at work, PayPal was originally available for Filipinos. Due to the high incidence of fraud, they decided to discontinue it’s service. Since then, we’ve all had to without it. There has been a continuous petition to have it offered again in the Philippines but the big bosses there in Paypal aren’t listening.
Looking at the discussions on ebay.ph, there are some explanations for this. Some of the local businessmen asked the PayPal people. One member comments:
I was at the launching dinner party of eBay.ph in Makati 2 days ago and of course the #1 question was why no PayPal here in Phils??The answer we got from the eBay rep was that as long as Philippines is still on the US watchlist of money laundering countries, PayPal can’t come here.It will definitely take a while before they do come here. – billiardcuemaster
Another ebay.ph members says that the ‘official’ statement goes:
The reason they are not ‘yet’ offering services in the Philippines is because of the local Philippine Banks required partner-percentage for PayPal. It is too high for PayPal who gets their revenue in the ‘charge rates’. If the banks will take almost all of it, then PayPal will earn so little in the Philippines. According to them, they will keep on negotiating with the Philippine Banks as they see the market in the Philippines to be high and the country is an asset in the world of e-commerce.
There is more discussion at answercenter.ebay.ph. The essential reasons include:
- Banking system here in the Philippines.
- Governments policy about the influx or rather out flux of US Dollars.
- Relative level of potential fraud.
Other bloggers, like Angelo Racoma, have expressed how it’d be greatly beneficial to the country to have Paypal readily available. He expresses it clearly:
If only we had PayPal in the Philippines, then I think we would be able to open to the world better means to access to our pool of talent.
Heck haven’t people realized yet that a lot of tech and web-programming work are outsourced to Filipinos? An online-payment system would definitely facilitate the way we transact business. We really need PayPal here.
Why? It offers benefits that could allow us an easier way to transact business online. It gives us:
- An easier opportunity to sell products on the web
- An easier way for outsourced work to be paid
- A a more convenient way to transfer money from overseas Filipinos abroad
There is now a real move to have PayPal available in the Philippines. Angelo, Migs, Mike, Abe and other major Pinoy bloggers are supporting it. We’re all lobbying for this work. Let’s support this movement!
We should all blog about this and tell all our friends. Let’s get some media mileage if we can. If the reasons stated above are true, we’ve got to push the banks and the government to address this issue. This is really important and can help our country economically.
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really…the second featured comment makes more sense than the first one.. money laundering? ;)
the money laundering issue is just ridiculous
i don’t know anything about this paypal thing but you know almost every person i talk to is recommending me to join this kind of group whatsoever because they get paid. oh well, i don’t know. i might think about it because I really want a new cellphone. haha.
I find that money-laundering issue weird myself, but that was what they talked about.
ayel, are you in the states? PayPal is an online money-transfer system -great for businesses and such. Pwede ka magnegosyo if you have paypal.
ni-email ko na ang ebay about considering philippines din two years ago pero ang reply nila sa akin susubukan chuva. oh well. gahhh.
If the person is an ebay patriot, most probably he/she is on with Paypal as well, since Ebay&Paypal is ONE. I used to buy soem goodies sa ebay, tapos i paid the seller via paypal through the help of myusmailbox.com, kung may paypal sana sa atin sana can do it with my own, but OK lang. Kaya naman Pinoy kahit walang PAYPAL, NOYPI Pa.
Yes, there are definitely other ways. There would be a lot of easy things to do if PayPal was available in the Philippines.
akala ko naman, meron na nga! kaya ako nag-click dito…reklamo pa rin pala :(
pero dami na ring nagrereklamo sa taas ng charges ng paypal e. So parang wag na lang kaya?
Sa isang banda, mapipilitan sila na mag-western union :D e di kuha na kaagad ang pera…yan e kung gusto talaga nila ang product/service mo…
C5, yes Paypal is now available in the Philippines but as a SEND MONEY only option.
..and how can you fill it with money to send?
The reason for the US government stating the Philippines for money laundering is nothing to do with money laundering at all it is fighting to keep the dollar as the world?s top currency. The whole reason the US went to war in Iraq are threatening Iran because they want to trade oil in Euros.
They have stopped many good British payment gateways trading in the US, Nochex, PPPay, and Moneybookers is very hard to us in the US all because of so called money laundering laws. More like a country running scared of the dollar collapsing.
As for PayPal great payment gateway for buyers but for sellers it?s a nightmare as a Englishman with a English bank account I could and did use PayPal but never again.
If a buyer claims he never got the goods or calls his money back before delivery PayPal takes the side of the buyer in every case. Proof of delivery even a signature means nothing to them they still go against the seller.
I lost over 40,000 peso because of money call backs by people using Paypal and they still trying to get another 20,000 from me that I won?t pay I am lucky UK law prevents them from taking it from my bank account those in US have had their banks emptyed by PayPal see http://www.paypalsucks.com
Sorry I know a lot of Filipino?s dream of the day paypal comes here for buyers but they will cripple you with the Philippines lack of laws to protect you and the fact a normal man can?t afford to take a court case they will bankrupt you.
You’re right Paul. Money-laundering is just an OFFICIAL ALIBI. The real bottom-line is profit. Paypal did not go into business to serve needs of its users but to earn money. It’s a strategy.
Frozen accounts and taking the side of buyers in a dispute is a money-making strategy. Paypal freezes accounts for 180 days. Imagine how much interest they can make when they freeze thousands of thousand-dollar accounts. My sister’s account worth $7,000 was frozen for 180 days just because of an unfounded suspicion. Her account was closed and the money returned after. Imagine doing that to thousands of accounts on the pretense of preventing fraud and protecting users.
Their Terms of Service has very little protection for the merchant. The odds are on their side once you agree to their terms.
Yes, we do need a way for our people to sell their products and services to the international market. But we need something better and more user-friendly than America’s Paypal. I hope some day that will come. How about NoChex and PPPay in the Philippines?
http://www.philpay.net
Bridging the gap in online payment for Pinoys
if you have a Saving / Current account in USA, you can send and recieve fund using your own paypal account.
I have my own US Checking + Debit Card + Online banking features, read this if you want to know more. http://www.xdownx.org/index.php?showtopic=17309