The Market is Learning IV…. BUT!

If I remember the dates correctly, this was how it went…

October 2006: PayPal was finally offered in the Philippines, albeit for sending money out only (read: paying someone abroad)

October 2007: PayPal finally makes it a possibility to send and receive money.

January 26, 2007: PayPal finally announced that we can withdraw funds to a local bank account.

Great developments in the eCommerce and payment gateway space, I say. Filipino eBayers welcomed these with much acclaim, especially those Filipino eBay sellers who were doing cross-border sales. Now, they had a reliable and secure mode of payment with which they can offer international buyers.

But currently, quite a number of people are pissed. Which explains the picture…

However, as with anything new, the withdrawal to a local bank account process had been experiencing a series of big hiccups. Incidents of not being able to successfully withdraw PayPal funds to a local bank account to protracted delays in receiving the transferred funds had been reported.

The whole thing gave me an impression that PayPal’s implementation had been quite haphazard and was not carefully planned. Announcement of their presence back in 2006 was decidedly mute. PayPal just arrived. The same thing happened in 2007. The two-way nature of how you transferred funds was definitely big news, but no clarion call of an announcement was made. Everyone was going a-gaga over HOW to transfer PayPal funds to the only viable and usable means available then — the widely popular and preferred mode of payment for eCommerce transactions, Unionbank’s EON CyberAccount VISA Electron (a Visa Debit Card). In the first few weeks (possibly within the month), eBayers were confused about how the process of transferring funds worked. The Customer Service group of Unionbank was, expectedly, deluged with calls for assistance, to which, nary a customer service assistant was of expert help. It was a case of not preparing the back-end to handle the PayPal roll-out.

Now, it’s been a month since PayPal announced the most exciting feature to date — the ability to transfer PayPal funds to a local bank account. But, there are still cases of failed transfers and delayed crediting of accounts. Initial attempts by PayPal users in the Philippines were characterized by the same level of confusion as when PayPal implemented the send-and-receive feature. Inaccurate 9-digit bank codes were, reportedly, posted, i.e. PayPal posted bank codes were not the same as the local bank’s 9-digit bank code. This issue was resolved soon enough. Still, complaints are being heard.

I am pretty sure that Filipinos who have a use for PayPal have a lot to thank for. Apart from those that do eBay or trade online or buy online, numerous Filipino programmers, graphic artists, writers, and the like will stand to benefit from PayPal.

Here’s wishing that the creases get ironed out soon.

Otherwise, more individuals, not necessarily just men, will continue to form a queue to the picture above….

Knightly News

News and Views from this Corner of the World…