The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has decided to abandon discussions with online payment providers PayPal and Stripe, at least for the time being, a top CBSL official told Ceylon FT. "Sri Lanka's online market might be too small for them to operate; therefore, they were not keen to provide their full services to Sri Lanka at this point in time," he said.
However, the official said that Stripe is willing to commence operations directly in Sri Lanka without any local partnership - but Sri Lankan laws prohibit such independent operations.
"According to existing laws, all payment providers must tie up with local financial institutions if they wish to provide services to Sri Lanka," he said.
He said Stripe was not interested in any joint ventures with local companies.
PayPal is the world's most widely-used online payment mode, but there are a number of developing countries like Sri Lanka where PayPal does not work for inward remittance.
Therefore, most of Sri Lanka's SMEs face severe problems for their inward remittance operations.
There are 1.6 million globally accepted credit cards in Sri Lanka, while the number of debit cardholders is well above 20 million.
Stripe is considered an alternative to PayPal and facilitates a simple way to accept payments from local customers. Stripe accepts a variety of payment methods, including cards such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express and JCB. In addition, Stripe can process transactions in around 100 currencies.
Currently, businesses should be based in Canada, UK, Australia, United States, Ireland, Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Switzerland to receive payments from Stripe.
Using Stripe, can integrate payment processing into their websites without having to register and maintain a merchant account. Stripe then transfers the funds directly into the bank account linked to the payee.
Source - https://ceylontoday.lk/print-more/39587
However, the official said that Stripe is willing to commence operations directly in Sri Lanka without any local partnership - but Sri Lankan laws prohibit such independent operations.
"According to existing laws, all payment providers must tie up with local financial institutions if they wish to provide services to Sri Lanka," he said.
He said Stripe was not interested in any joint ventures with local companies.
PayPal is the world's most widely-used online payment mode, but there are a number of developing countries like Sri Lanka where PayPal does not work for inward remittance.
Therefore, most of Sri Lanka's SMEs face severe problems for their inward remittance operations.
There are 1.6 million globally accepted credit cards in Sri Lanka, while the number of debit cardholders is well above 20 million.
Stripe is considered an alternative to PayPal and facilitates a simple way to accept payments from local customers. Stripe accepts a variety of payment methods, including cards such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express and JCB. In addition, Stripe can process transactions in around 100 currencies.
Currently, businesses should be based in Canada, UK, Australia, United States, Ireland, Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Switzerland to receive payments from Stripe.
Using Stripe, can integrate payment processing into their websites without having to register and maintain a merchant account. Stripe then transfers the funds directly into the bank account linked to the payee.
Source - https://ceylontoday.lk/print-more/39587
