India Suspended From PayPal For "At Least a Few Months"

More details have come about about what was behind PayPal's decision to suspend personal payments to any user in India, as we discussed on Sunday. In a blog post today, PayPal revealed that payments to India will remain in suspension for at least a few months. Customers in India will be able to pull rupees out of the service into their bank accounts within a few days. The suspension came about when Indian government regulators raised questions about whether PayPal's service was enabling remittances (transfers of money by foreign workers) to Indian citizens. "The problems may have been triggered by a marketing push that promotes PayPal as a way to send money abroad, a source familiar with the matter said. The campaign — which reads 'As low as $1.50 to send $300 to countries like India' — may have caught the attention of Indian regulators, the source said."

Analog tech...

[eparker05]

While PayPal may be convenient, shutting down paypal will not stop remittences. People can simply place a check in an envelope and mail it. Money orders are also an option.

Re:State vs Internet

[ImNotAtWork]

You don't have to be a bank to transfer funds from one point to another. Western Union can send money across international boundaries. It isn't a bank either, it's a financial service.

Re:State vs Internet

[_merlin]

Western Union doesn't hold funds in accounts for you, and doesn't do short-term loans.

Re:Analog tech...

[iammani]

The aim is not to stop remittances, but to permit remittances only if the required paper work has been submitted (Which is very simple one page form, asking for sender and receiver details (name, address, identity proof) and reason for transfer).

The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) mandates banks registered in India to collect these before forex transfers can be made.

In this case, paypal doesnt want to be registered as a bank and fall under RBI regulations. As a result have been banned. I am surprise it did not happen earlier.

And just to make it clear, SWIFT Transfer (also called wire transfer) and mailing checks/DDs will continue to work. There are no options send/receive money order to/from India

Re:State vs Internet

[iammani]

FYI, not in India. Western union cannot be used to send money from India. It can be used to send to India though, where the recipient can furnish necessary documentation (identity proof, name address, reason for transfer) and collect it.

Re:State vs Internet

[Dalambertian]

Out of curiosity, what percentage of our wealth would you say is required to provide for the common defense?

a) 0-10% b)10-50% c) > 50%

If you answered (a), then you and dugan might be in agreement.

Re:Paypal is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is so much dubious crap buried in the terms and conditions that none save a seasoned lawyer would figure out, and so many stories of people being royally screwed over by paypal (eg bank accounts being wiped out for no apparent reason)..."

As someone who worked at PayPal and saw the horror first hand over the years, I cannot possibly agree more. The Terms sheet is a deck that is stacked against the user at every opportunity.

I remember first hand seeing an employee (with a reputation for incompetence) award $30,000 to a fraudster from a legitimate business account. This is a common error, and PayPal sets aside a budget to fix these mistakes. But because of the dollar amount, upper management decided to hide behind some vague language in the terms sheet and screw the good user.

I don't know how the story ended out exactly. Legally they may have gotten away with it. But just because it was legal doesn't mean it was moral.

Re:State vs Internet

[prayag]

Actually money transfer to India is not difficult at all. I use bank and wire transfer and it works fine to transfer money to and from India. The problem is that Indian government wants to keep a full track of where and how money crosses border. It always had. Transfers through PayPal, unless it registers itself as a bank, are difficult to track. That is why the problem.
BTW, for this reason, hawala [wikipedia.org] transfers are illegal in India and have come under heavy fire.

Re:OMG!

[tangent3]

They are not trying to stop you from giving money to someone else, but from giving money to someone else [b]without leaving a trace[/b] that can be taxed or to be investigated for illegal money laundering.

Re:PayPal bypass the SWIFT system

[_merlin]

SWIFT doesn't actually perform fund transfers. SWIFT just provides a standard platform for sending messages between banks. It's the Indian banks (and other ForEx providers) who have to report transactions to the government, anyway.

experience from my recent trip to India

[nerdyalien]

I visited New Delhi last November (2009).

On my way in, I managed to change my USD to INR at the airport right after the immigration counter, no problem with that.

But on my way out, I thought I can get my INR change back to USD at the air port (this is my normal routine). Alas! there are no money-changers at the airport. Even if they are available, they are only for Indians and it is capped at INR 5000.

I ended up bringing some 5-digit amount INR back to home, later changed back to USD and lost something like ~20 USD as I don't get same rates outside India.

This is ridiculous. I mean, I have been to many airports. And in most of them, there is a money changer and there are no restrictions for foreigners. But this is the first time I'm seeing other way around. Strange land indeed!

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked for PayPal, I'm sure the phone agents didn't know what the legal department was doing, because there is NO COMMUNICATION.

Re:Age of lean governments - not yet

[dooode]

Well your problems are genuine ndverdo, but imagine some guy XYZ who is using the same route to fund a jehadi outfit for their services in India. Also: i) There is no traceability of the transactions ii) You cannot tax anyone earning any amount in India as PayPal is not a bank. We also don't exactly know the background story. It might be 100% feasible that Indian regulatory authorities might have requested logs of all such transactions and PayPal declined. This happened in Blackberry's case, where Blackberry declined Indian government to track its call data but it allows US government the same. Eventually Blackberry was blocked in India.