Paypal opens up to RP users, but local bloggers not happy

By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

PAYPAL is finally opening up to users based in the Philippines.

Paypal is an online service that allows payments and money transfers through the Internet. Emerging as an alternative means to checks and money order, it is currently used to process payments for online vendors and auction sites like eBay. This e-commerce service in turn charges a fee.

Paypal’s worldwide services indicate that Philippine residents can now use the service to “send and receive money worldwide,” the service’s website said.

“With over 100 million accounts worldwide and growing, we help you securely, easily and quickly pay and get paid locally and across borders,” it added.

Filipino professional bloggers welcomed this development, but expressed dissatisfaction with what it really offers.

“So what does this mean? Well, like many other countries listed as having Paypal support, it’s not really what others would call “Full Paypal Support,” Abe Olandres wrote in Pinoy Tech Blog .

He argued that while Filipinos can now receive payments via Paypal, they can only use the money to buy services or goods online.

“This makes the recent limited support practically useless to 99.9% of Filipino Paypal users in the country. In that end, one would still have to use other 3rd party services like Xoom to actually send funds and deposit them to local banks. That makes it more expensive actually since money will have to go thru 2 channels now instead of one,” Olandres lamented.

Reacting to Olandres’ posting, Arnold Gamboa said in a comment that local bank Unionbank’s EON debit card could be used to receive funds using Paypal.

“In that case, there can really be a ‘full cycle’ of transactions, including the delivery of funds — only, it’s really much cheaper if it is deposited directly to a bank, which isn’t available yet,” Gamboa added.

More than a year ago, professional blogger J. Angelo Racoma launched a campaign to bring PayPal into the Philippines.

The campaign hoped to reward Filipino knowledge workers earning a decent income from doing outsourced jobs.

In a telephone interview, Racoma said this development is good for now since the service is slowly opening up to users in the country.

“But the service does not allow us to withdraw from Philippine banks. We can only use US bank or local debit cards to receive funds with charges. But it can now be used to pay for services online,” he said.

Racoma has said Paypal can help local talent earn from outsourced work by providing easier and more efficient payment gateway.

He has acknowledged that an “underground economy” that involves Filipino knowledge workers doing contract work for foreign firms now exists in the Philippines. They are not working for any business process outsourcing firm based in the country.

“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. In the course of my freelance work as a writer/blogger I’ve had clients who paid via money transfer and it took days, and it was expensive. Xoom? It’s a good mid-way solution, but still not as convenient as having the real deal (PayPal). After all, they still get a cut, and the paying party still has to register for an account, where his PayPal details would then be keyed in,” he said in his blog.

Paypal allowed Filipinos based in the Philippines to use a limited service more than a year ago.

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