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Government launch efforts to bring PayPal in Pakistan: report

Hong Kong Democracy Party Says PayPal Terminated Account
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The new government will launch efforts to bring PayPal — a US company that operates a global online payment system that provides online payment solutions — to Pakistan.

According to an official source reported by Pro Pakistani, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will attend the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, next week, where he will meet global leaders, CEOs of energy sectors, and trade delegations. He will also meet with representatives from PayPal and invite them to launch their services in Pakistan.

The report stated that the Ministries of Finance and Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) are investigating the venture, and that representatives from at least one of the ministries will attend the meeting.

During today’s Cabinet meeting, PM Sharif requested a briefing from the MoITT on IT sector reforms and the reasons why PayPal has not been brought to Pakistan.

A parliamentary panel in July 2021 urged the finance secretary to hold a meeting with all stakeholders to probe why PayPal is not operating in Pakistan.

Attempts to bring the global online payment giant to Pakistan had been made in 2015 and 2019, but it had refused. PayPal’s main concern in entering the Pakistani market is the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) long list of regulatory restrictions and the complicated three-step approval process.

According to reports, Pakistan’s inclusion on the FATF gray list is also one of the issues. International electronic payment service providers must follow strict FATF regulations for customers and avoid money laundering, or their licenses will be revoked by the SBP.

PayPal is a financial technology company that enables its users to easily exchange money over the internet. The company operates in over 190 countries and has over 361 million active users worldwide. It is, however, not available in Pakistan. As a result, the freelancing community is having difficulty receiving payment in exchange for their services.

About the author

Saman Iqbal

Saman is a law student. She enjoys writing about tech, politics and the world in general. She's an avid reader and writes fictional prose in her free time.







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