PayPal a reality in SL ‘soon’ : Lalith Weeratunga
Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, during a recent live twitter question and answer session, received a question about the lack of inward remittances into the country by global e-commerce platform PayPal.
Part of a session that was promoted as the first-of-its-type for a Sri Lankan civil servant by government-run website news.lk, and carried out via President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s verified twitter account (@PresRajapaksa), this question has been paraphrased as follows (to remove space saving abbreviations): “Why is PayPal not supported in Sri Lanka? There are many Internet money makers waiting for it. Why don’t you (also) allow this huge income for Sri Lanka?” In response, Mr. Weeratunga tweeted; “CB (Central Bank) is working on PayPal and soon it’ll be a reality “.
In fact, this is not a new development, instead it is the latest volley in a continuing push to get the CB to lift restrictions on PayPal accepting inward remittances. Another recent development is the 3,500 signatures mark being exceeded for a change.org petition for PayPal inward remittances into Sri Lanka. This petition was started in 2012 by blogger Supun Budhajeewa.
This increased uptake in rhetoric follows a recent comment by CBSL Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal, who was quoted in an lbo.lk news story, as stating his organisation was “seriously” looking at opening up inward PayPal remittances, but does not give a date for its adoption.
So what is PayPal? And why is it so important? For the uninitiated, PayPal is the most used global e-commerce platform for small and micro businesses putting up products and services for sale on the Internet.
Its primary benefit is that, since it is not related to banks, which often charge hefty fees for online transactions as well as credit card transactions, PayPal has become the preferred choice for small and micro businesses as well as even crowdsourcing funding efforts associated with Kickstarter, IndieGogo, etc., which at least one local IT sector personality has pointed to as possible sources for funds for entrepreneurs. Of PayPal, in a March 23, 2012, post on indi.ca, titled “Why Sri Lanka Doesn’t Have PayPal”, well-known Sri Lanka blogger Indi Samarajiva has opined; “In two words, the Central Bank. Out of fear of money laundering or whatever, they aren’t taking the simple steps to enable Sri Lankan businesses to compete online. Seriously, there is no efficient or simple payment gateway.
The ones the banks do are all closed, ugly and actually insecure. Other international suppliers like 2Checkout or MoneyBookers are not nearly as simple. I’m not saying PayPal is great, but it’s good. The Central Bank really needs to get it together”.
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