PayPal users In India, beware!
PayPal Holdings Inc has decided to close the shutters on its domestic payment business in India from April. The San Jose, California-based company has instead decided to focus on its cross-border payments business, continuing to allow customers around the globe to pay Indian merchants for their services.
In simple terms, Indians will no longer be able to avail of PayPal’s payment services from April 1.
PayPal is one of the most popular online payment options available in India, alongside Paytm and Google Pay, used mostly on apps like travel and ticketing service MakeMyTrip, food delivery app Swiggy, and online film booking app BookMyShow. From April 1, Indian users will have to start getting accustomed to using other payment options.
“From 1 April 2021, we will focus all our attention on enabling more international sales for Indian businesses, and shift focus away from our domestic focus in India,” PayPal said.
PayPal has grand plans for the future, including the option to allow customers to hold popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin and other virtual coins in its online wallet. Customers will be able to spend cryptocurrencies to shop at the 26 million merchants on its network. This move will elevate the California-based company to become one of the largest companies in the United States to provide its consumers access to cryptocurrencies. It will also give Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies the chance to carve a niche for themselves to stand as viable payment methods.
PayPal hopes that this would encourage the usage of digital currency. “We are working with central banks and pondering of all types of digital currencies and the way PayPal can play a task,” Dan Schulman, president, and chief executive, PayPal, said.
This will enable customers to purchase, promote and maintain cryptocurrencies in their PayPal wallets from early 2022. The company also plans to broaden the service to its peer-to-peer cost app Venmo in the first half of 2021.
