World Cup Brings Paypal to South Africa.. ?

South African's can now fully enjoy the seamless benefits of the secure online payment service PayPal thanks to  a partnership by a local Bank- First National Bank (FNB) and PayPal International. South Africa in March 2010 became the st African Country to officially join the PayPal secure online payments platform(see official PayPal Blog announcement).On a positive note entry of PayPal to South African subscribers may prove to be the entry point of the service to other African Countries  on the other hand this just demonstrates how Africa is inherently incapacitated perhaps 'by design' in fully utilizing or harnessing the power of E-Commerce and secure online payment systems.

What perhaps may be puzzling to pundits is, whether the fact that South Africa will be hosting the 2010 World Cup may have  had any influence if at all, for the service provider to venture into this market especially after many African Bloggers had previously campaigned for the entry of the service to Africa but to no avail.Efforts at the same were met with excuses of procedural and technical difficulties .

See the following posts:

1.  David Oluinyi Ajao's post of date : 29/09/2007  wherein he stated Paypal's response as to why Africans could only send but not be able to receive payments was that

"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....

2.  My First initial post on the issue which was later highlighted at the World Bank Blog  , one of the solutions propounded was for Africans to get an African solution for effective online payments .However the issue would be foolhardy since a majority of western merchants preferred PayPal as the medium of payment thus disadvantaging Africans.

How that  has changed in the case of South Africa and in the current context proves to be an enigma of sorts.However ,still it is a positive step though meager at best for the African market. A South African blogger at Imod.co.za indicates that despite the positive development still the South African user of PayPal may not be able to fully enjoy the full benefits of the service.

The Paypal Campaign

Some time back i did a post on Paypal here at Siku-moja, by so doing i expressly stated that i was beginning a campaign to ensure that Africa is given an opportunity to utilize all the facets and services available at paypal because we are loosing out in our e-commerce due to being sidelined by Paypal !That campaign has been given favorable response and highlighted in various forums, i therefore will hereby provide a link to the various discussions and websites that this matter has caught attention:

1. First link is at http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/t/news/international/countriesandterritories/kenya/
2. David adjao highlights the Paypal plight at http://www.davidajao.com/blog/2007/09/29/why-paypal-features-in-africa-are-limited/
3. PSD World Bank Group also chose to highlight my post at :http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2008/07/paypal-not-in-1.html
4. Squidoo highlighted the post at https://www.squidoo.com/paypalweb
5. Global Voices Online also caught the que and highlighted the post at http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/06/19/africa-is-paypal-effective-in-africa/
   

And how did paypal respond(this may be of interest to Erik of White African blog):

"I work for PayPal and wanted to let you know where we are in expanding our services more widely around the world. PayPal's intent is to expand our services globally wherever there is demand for our product -- whether that's Africa or anywhere around the world. Because PayPal has to comply with local regulations and integrate with the local financial infrastructure, these things take time. We are watching this market closely and will let you know when we roll out more advanced services. Thanks for your interest in PayPal.

Sara Gorman
PayPal Inc."

Yes, this was a campaign that was worth undertaking and i hope Paypal will hasten their initiative to tap into this emerging markets!the sooner the better.Once again this highlights the power of citizen media- the posts on this blog are not just for entertainment purpose but to improve the African experience online, and you will agree that together we are doing good !My blogging experience highlights the fact that one has to consistently keep up on what they believe in if they intend to achieve any good!I hope Africa will benefit from Paypal activities to the fullest extent in the near future!

(some good news just got the CNBC interview DVD , will upload it soon, though i hate how i looked-must have been the lighting!)

Is Paypal Effective in Africa ?

Sometime back in October 2007 i did a post on Paypal in Africa at the following Link http://siku-moja.blogspot.com/2007/10/when-is-paypal-coming-to-africa.html up until today there are no definite answers to that question and many people are eager to know whether they can send or receive payments for paypal in Africa.

I would like to get a discussion on this issue going on at this blog.As a blogger who has subscribed to payperpost and social sparks, i have found it increasing difficult to process my payments and this means that many Africans (see davidajao's post )just like me are loosing money due to the limited presence of this most important service.Payperpost recently informed me that each payment they sent came back with a response that one can only send but not receive payment in Kenya.That is queer considering their site in listing which places one can access their services in Africa states that one can send money to Kenya (Paypal Approved Countries Link)

There are actually quite few countries privileged to send, receive and withdraw money among whom include India,United Arab Emirates,Indonesia, Slovakia.Romania,MalaysiaBulgaria ,Latvia etc. As for Africa im yet to hear of a Country you can send, receive or withdraw money not even South Africa...i stand to be corrected!Noteworthy is that in September 2007 the Paypal blog boasted of the new international withdrawal functionality i.e at http://www.thepaypalblog.com/weblog/2007/09/paypal-introduc.html but that really was not good news as the status quo is still the same for Africa.We were left out as always seems to be the case.

I believe that maybe Paypal does not recognize the potential and opportunities available in Africa and it is time we trumpeted this cause and let them know they are loosing out and costing us!If you are a blogger, website owner or administrator please link to this post or do a post and link to this post so that we can get them to do something about this.Our inactivity and passive view of such important matters limits our opportunities to effectively trade in the world wide web!

Paypal was founded in 1998,San Jose California and now boasts of operating over153 million accounts worldwide ,available in 190 markets and 17 currencies all over the world except in Africa.Due to its inadequate presence in hinterland Africa,the E-Commerce provider is losing out on massive profits which it could rake in due to emerging robust markets in Africa.Other services such as Alertpay.com may just exploit this lacunae.That may not necessarily be the case if Paypal responds to our request.Please add your voice to this cause by linking and commenting on this post or digg this post vide the link i will provide shortly.We most definately need Paypal to provide all its services and benefits in Africa and soon!

Paypal we also need to send, receive and withdraw money in our bank accounts in Africa too!The faster the service is provided the better.Africa's commercial and economic systems are far much better than the war ravished economies in Eastern European Countries to whom Paypal has given preference in their snailspeed worldwide expansion program!


Here's another link showing why we need Paypal: from Blogger Jasonbagleyin South Africa, dont you just feel his pain in the post?

Please Digg this at: http://digg.com/business_finance/Is_Paypal_Effective_In_Africa

Please! Please! DIGG THIS

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