Business Desk :
PayPal, a popular online payment processor, will be launched in Bangladesh in December this year, said Salman F Rahman, the prime minister’s adviser for private industry and investment.
“Paypal, a payment gateway used in the gig economy and make online buying easy, is planned to be launched in December this year,” he said while visiting the Walton factory at Chandra in Gazipur on Saturday. Allowing the operation of PayPal in the country was a long time demand of more than 6,50,000 freelance professionals working in international marketplaces such as freelancer.com and upwork.com.
Authorities concerned said the sector to be worth nearly $1 billion in Bangladesh.
They dubbed the gateway as an easy transaction system and said its absence made purchases and directly working for the clients on online marketplaces complicated. Freelancers say it is vital to work directly for the clients as the marketplace takes a good share from their payments.
They find the available payment systems not safe and hassle-free as PayPal.
PayPal’s transaction fee is around 3 per cent.
“If Paypal starts to offer its services in Bangladesh, it will help our freelancing community immensely. Freelancers can easily accept payment from direct clients and can also use Paypal as a payment gateway in their personal websites to sell digital products and services.
As PayPal is widely popular among entrepreneurs worldwide, they can now hire and pay Bangladeshi freelancers with confidence,” Mahfuzur Rahman, general secretary of the Bangladesh Freelancers Development Society told.
