Why Paypal features in Africa are limited
A few years ago, there was no single country on the African continent where one could send/receive money online via Paypal. Not one. Then there was South Africa. A few countries were added, as most were later covered. Even now, all the African countries can only send - they cannot receive money via Paypal.
Any enquiry to Paypal on these issues always come with the same answer:
PayPal is constantly working to expand and improve our services for our customers. We hope to be expanding our availability to include more countries, however, due to the complexities of global expansion, we cannot give a timetable for this.
Just recently, Paypal announced that some more countries can now withdraw their Paypal funds to a Visa or Mastercard credit, debit or prepaid card. Still, no African country is among the 26 that have these added functionality.
It is indeed interesting to note that Paypal is not available to residents of Nigeria which is Africa’s 2nd largest economy after South Africa and also the most populous nation in Africa. The potential is there. Indeed, many banks in Nigeria now issue international Mastercard credit cards and local debit cards are also widely used at ATMs, on the Internet and at Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminals.
I am speculating on some reasons why residents of some African countries cannot use Paypal while others have just limited use:
1. Banking system: the banking system in some African countries are not entirely electronic though many countries are fast developing in this area. Countries like South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria have gone far. Their banking system are quite developed.
2. Governments policy about the influx or rather out flux of foreign currency like Euro, British Pounds sterling and the US Dollar. Fear of the economic concept “Capital Flight” has made many African governments maintain a strict control on the outflow of foreign exchange from their respective countries.
3. High level of potential fraud: This would relate more to Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana. The incidence of fraud reported from these countries are high indeed and many online merchants and fraud-screening databases have marked these countries red. Legit businesses are thus negatively affected. Very few online merchants or mail forwarding agencies would ship to these countries.
What do you think?
Sep 30th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
This is seriously affecting most of us trying to earn legitimate income on the internet. I wish paypal reconsider its stance on this issue, though fraud may be their fear but at least some security features are put in place.
And for us finding it difficult to do business(legal) online, which other means is best suitable? As most of this affiliate company ask for our paypal account…..
Oct 1st, 2007 at 5:05 am
I live in South Africa and the PayPal issue is huge for me as I do work on the net and have to have money paid into friends’ accounts in the USA. They keep it for me for when I next travel there.
It is a crazy set-up because small businesses cannot operate on the internet. Our local Chamber of Commerce in Durban is investigating the matter at government level because I think it has to do with exchange control.
Oct 1st, 2007 at 6:11 am
Don’t worry, the day it will come when all countries users can be able to withdraw fund from their paypal account.
Uses from Malaysia & 25 other Asia Pacific countries have been waited so long.
Check out my blog post about what are the other 25 countries as ready to withdraw their fund into local cards.
Oct 2nd, 2007 at 9:39 am
Yes PayPal may not be available for receipts in Africa, but other options are. You can use services like MoneyBookers.com and AlertPay.com
Oct 2nd, 2007 at 11:25 am
I am aware. I use both Alertpay and Moneybookers almost daily.
I explored this issue more comprehensively here: e-commerce in Africa
Oct 8th, 2007 at 8:51 am
My simple opinion is that if paypal can afford to let citizens of some African countries to send money then they should also give the ability to receive funds as well. It should be a dual service - send and receive at the same time.
Oct 13th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
It is dishearten to see this kind discrimination if i may say happening. Well one day Paypal will come to realize the large opportunity in Africa. But I hope it will not be too late for it to realize.
Dec 10th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Here is a solution to the problem for South Africans and citizens of the excluded country’s to receive money from the 60 million PayPal members.Accept credit cards and PayPal from your website in 5 minutes http://www.online-e-commerce.co.za offer the solution to enable your website to accept payments,you even receive a ATM debit card so the money from the payment company’s that does the transaction on your behalf at a small fee transfer it back into your debit card.
Jan 8th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I wonder why Nigeria the most populous black nation won’t be allowed into paypal system. We all in Nigeria are not fraudstars as they think and morever the most advance form of cybercrimes is coming from this so called developed country.I pray paypal would reason to these and change its decision before its to late becausea Africa is emaging as world economic power.It might sound funny, but thats the through
Feb 27th, 2008 at 10:26 am
CAN I RECEIVE MONEY BY PAYPAL IN KENYA????
THANKS.
CHRIS.
Apr 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Paypal users in Kenya are currently on the Send Only list meaning they cannot receive payment via Paypal.
Apr 5th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I think it’s opportune to highlight an example here that scammers are not found in Nigeria only.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7296315.stm
So PayPal if you are reading this take not, and lift the glass ban.
Apr 9th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Be carefull not to purchase any information on how to get Paypal to work in your country. Paypal is known to freeze accounts, and take the money. I bought the information at various sources, and have published it here (http://paypal-in-southafrica.blogspot.com/) for you for free, as well why it might not work. Since it is public knowledge on various forums in anycase.
I don’t think that government policy is necessarily the cause for Paypal not enterring South Africa, since we have other similar services, like SETCOM. Explain that.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I think this is partly DISCRIMINATION. Fraud and corruption are also rampant in The West. I pray for the day when a collaboration of banks, IT specialists, scholars and governments in the DEVELOPING WORLD create their own alternative to PayPal and shut them out once and for good.
Luckily, I do my PayPal stuff thru my Canadian bank account.
- Max (aka MaxTheITpro of http://MaxTheITpro.BlogSpot.com & http://GoAfricaGo.BlogSpot.com )
Jun 17th, 2008 at 10:16 am
We need to dirrect Paypal to our plight , i have a post on it and i have made a link to your blog on it!
http://siku-moja.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-paypal-effective-in-africa.html
Jul 5th, 2008 at 5:32 am
The absense of a simple payment system delays the offering of simple but effective solutions like e-learning. Telling users to pay money into an account, wait for it to clear before they can start using the service or download the product just does not make sense. I hope we can put our collective brains together and come up with a working solution to this problem. The winner is going to get very rich indeed.
Jul 8th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Africa is by and large a huge joke to foreign businesses. Investing, or facilitating their services in your shithole continent is not very profitable for them. Also, Africa is too volatile and corrupt really.
If it were not for western involvement in Africa, you all would have died by now from either disease or starvation. Sooner or later the west is gonna say ‘enough is enough, we’ve had it with these losers.’ and just give up bothering about you.
Good luck surviving into the future.
P.S. with ‘419′ being synonymous with ‘Nigeria’ who in their right mind would risk doing business in that country?
Jul 8th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
AFRICANS DESERVE THIS PLIGHT. U HAVE REFUSED TO GROW UP. U ALWAYS WANT TO BE SPOON FED. WHAT HAVE THE SCAMMERS AND FRAUDSTERS USED THEIR MONEY FOR APART FROM LUXURIOUS HOUSES AND CARS. DID THEY CONSIDER PAYING SHARES IN PAYPAL SO THEIR VOICE COULD BE HEARD? HAVE THEY CONSIDERED SETTING UP FACTORIES TO HELP LIFT AFRICAN OUT OF POVERTY? AFRICA HAS BEEN CRAWLING FOR TOO LONG ITS ABOUT T IME TO GET UP AND WALK. I THINK WE HAVE TO MAIM ALL THOSE LUXURY FANS AND UNITE TO CAPTURE THE “FRONT”. EVERY CONTINENT IS POSITIONED WHAT ABOUT US.
I TRIED AN SMS SERVICE THAT CLAIMED “FREE SMS TO PHONES WORLDWIDE” I CHECKED THE LIST AND AFRICA WAS NOT LISTED WHAT IT MEANS IS WE ARE NOT COUNTED AS PART OF THE WORLD WE ARE STILL THOSE WARMONGERING, STARVING, SAVAGES. I LIVE IN NYC AND THIS IS TYPICAL OF MANY. EVEN THE SOME HISPANICS EVENTHOUGH THERE ARE COUTRIES MORE DEVELOPED THAN THOSE SPANISH COUNTRIES. SO DONT BE FOOLED AFRICANS, OUR TRADEMARK IS HORRIBLE. AND IT KEEPS FUCKING UP BY THOSE SICKLY HIV VIDEOS AND FOREIGN AID
Jul 8th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
AMERICA IS AN ILLUSION AND A BRAIN WASHING MATRIX LET US NOT GET PLUGGED INTO IT. IF U ARE INTERESTED IN FINDING WAYS TO GO AROUND THIS PAYPAL SCHEME JUST HOLLA AND I’LL CERTAINLY SEND U SOME APPROACHES THROUGH U TUBE. THAT WAY U CAN PURCHASE AND GET PAID WITHOUT THE REDTAPEISM
Aug 10th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Paypal is such a great system but this exclusion is very disheartening.I am a South African living Cayman Islands in Caribbean and both these countries are on Send Only List…No winning here!