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PayPal in South Africa - FNB official story

shoutOut on 13/2/10 by EranEyal in peeps


There has been a LOT of chatter all over the South African Internet regarding First National Bank in discussions to bring PayPal back to South Africa.

WHAT??!! You don’t know what PayPal is? I don’t blame you, since the South African e-commerce environment has been hamstrung by not having this worldwide international standard stripped from us for so long.

PayPal is a USA-based wallet system for making and receiving payments safely over the Internet. PayPal protects you most of all as at no time do you need to divulge any of your financial information. FANTASTIC!

PayPal became especially famous on eBay and has now become *THE standard * in online payments.

Today PayPal has more than 153 million accounts worldwide across 190 markets and 24 currencies.

A few years ago due to some decisions made by the reserve bank as well as increased rate in fraud. But the genera consensus is that’s all a bit of “he said, she said”.

A bit of online digging revealed the following article on one of South Africa’s best known blogs, mybroadband – It’s a common consensus that something does stink to high heaven here.

Here is another article on MoneyWeb siting the exact legislation.

Here is a good podcast covering the issue with JP van der Spuy from Mytrade.co.za

Th two major considerations that have really held back e-commerce in South Africa are the South African Postal Service (So bad it sent the world’s largest shopping portal Amazon.com) running for the purple mountains) coupled with the lack of PayPal.

I know that the lift of this ridiculous restriction will completely change the way that companies like Springleap.com will do business not only in South Africa, but with the international Internet community that has become used to PayPal as their go-to payment method.

Despite what you may have heard to date the deal has not yet been sealed, but yesterday Virginia Magapatona – the head of corporate communications at FNB – confirmed that FNB is indeed in discussions with PayPal and the South African Reserve Bank – but that’s where the information and communication trail ends. That’s the FNB official story.

Te rest is hype and conjecture.

And hope.
shoutBacks

There is an update on this matter available at the following link : Paypal and FNB press event on 25 March 2010

Nothing confirmed in terms of a commitment to launch – more a commitment to discuss with the press officially… but who know? Perhaps FNB and PayPal will surprise us after all with an actual launch date for this key service in South Africa. At least we will get a real official statement from both parties and be able to grill them like a cheese sandwich.

Will this finally mean PayPal in South Africa? I FN-B hope so.

shoutBack on 12/3/10 by EranEyal

Hey @Jumper – I have created a new post on how a South African can open a fully functional PayPal account

Hope this helps!

shoutBack on 3/3/10 by EranEyal

Hey E, what if I can’t wait and I need PayPal right now in South Africa? Any pointers o suggestions? Do I need to go overseas an get a bank acc, to ope it from?

shoutBack on 28/2/10 by Jumper

UPDATE it seems that yesterday evening FNB Officially announced to their customers that they are in real talks with PayPal to bring the service to South Africa. Note that there is no guarantee, just an official statement on their site that they are in official talks with PayPal.

shoutBack on 24/2/10 by EranEyal

UPDATE it seems that yesterday evening FNB Officially announced to their customers that they are in real talks with PayPal to bring the service to South Africa. Note that there is no guarantee, just an official statement on their site that they are in official talks with PayPal.

shoutBack on 24/2/10 by EranEyal

Hey guys – any updates on the South African PayPal portal or ability to pay with PayPal?

Really frustrating stuff, everytime I wanna buy anything and hit stupid barriers like this…

I mean why are we so backward in SA?

I know plenty of people who have online sites and stuff and would love to have PayPal.. I just hope it’s not astronomically expensive when it launches. That would suck.

shoutBack on 21/2/10 by TheTank

Hey guys – any updates on the South African PayPal portal or ability to pay with PayPal?

Really frustrating stuff, everytime I wanna buy anything and hit stupid barriers like this…

I mean why are we so backward in SA?

I know plenty of people who have online sites and stuff and would love to have PayPal.. I just hope it’s not astronomically expensive when it launches. That would suck.

shoutBack on 21/2/10 by TheTank

via

Thanks for the info

shoutBack on 16/2/10 by EranEyal

The main PayPal alternatives for South African and African entrepreneurs I could find were the following :


There is a credit card processor called 2Checkout which store owners can use to set up a merchant account. Low startup costs but they take a piece of every transaction.


There’s also Moneybrookers which is quite similar to PayPal plus it allows customers to transfer their funds to any bank, anywhere or mail a check. Ther have 11.1 million account holders. Not too shabby.


There’s also the UK-based NetTeller which is a direct competitor to PayPal. It’s an eWallet as well and offers payments to pretty much all countries across the world


Ikobo offer a money transfer service as well with Inter-African fees at 6%, but that means it’s more expensive that PayPal technically.

Do you know of any other alternatives to PayPal for us deprived South Africans?

shoutBack on 16/2/10 by EranEyal

Hey Eran, what other alternatives are there to PayPal then? Getting pretty fustrated and don’t want to wait for thos greysuited crapmongers that keep holding my business back!!!

shoutBack on 16/2/10 by Jumper