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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."
I hope they get in the crap with even more countries and are forced to do stuff like this, maybe eventually they'll have to declare themselves as an actual bank and give their users rights over their money for a change. 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)...
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
Isn't this in direct contradiction to something PayPal said a day or two ago? Something akin to "golly gee we're not sure what happened but we're looking into it".
On another note, this applies to private transactions only, not commercial ones. This directly affects any freelancers who aren't operating as a company though, such as Rent-A-Coder, et. al.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Stopping money flow and financial services innovation is, like Internet censorship,
Its not about stopping money flow, but rather money flow in a regulated manner. I don't think its even legal for PayPal to have the services they offer without registering itself as a bank. As another someone said earlier, "The problem is PayPal wants to do the functions of a bank but does not want to be registered as a bank".
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.
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
Western Union doesn't hold funds in accounts for you, and doesn't do short-term loans.
why exactly do we need massive percentages (10-50%) of our resources funneled
to maintain the state and state-run defense and services
So that people who are envious of your physical resources don't all band together, drop by your house one day, and proceed to hack you to bits with machetes? So that there's a semi-controlled environment to enable the provision of services - like power, water and maybe even a little internet?
* physical defense and security being the only notable exception.
And a very big fucking exception they will remain, too.
Dreams, meet reality. Watch out for reality's sucker punch, it can really catch you unawares.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
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
1. The want to know about it so they can tax it.
2. They don't want foreign funding of domestic terrorists.
3. They don't want criminals to have yet another way to move money around.
4. They want to protect their export industry by not having that "favorable" effect on exchange rates.
And don't forget, India was mostly unaffected by our recent economic downturn because of their draconian economic laws. For decades they were criticized for their over regulation of their financial markets but after the fall, India was seen as a model for how markets could survive wide-scale economic collapse.
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.
The necessary reasons for countries as they exist today mostly go away when the Internet fully connects individuals.* Obsolescence is a terrible thing for bureaucracy, but can be framed as the primary driver of most "issues" governments have with the Internet.
* physical defense and security being the only notable exception.
Can you give one example of a core role that becomes obsolete? I assume there must be something. The post? That was a core role a couple centuries ago, I guess.
Most state funds go to transportation infrastructure, "physical defense" (ie, military), law enforcement & prisons, education, health care, retirement pensions and other social safety nets (not in that order). Research funding, parks, civil courts, disaster recovery aid & regulatory enforcement and the like are a few of the other less-expensive things that get money.
*None* of those vanish when the internet connects individuals. [I understand that some will pick their least favorite (the military, or the social safety net) and say the government shouldn't be doing it anyway, but that desire's independent of 'connectivity'.] A few clerks may lose their jobs due to on-line requests being filled, but I'm not even sure what people are imagining when they think the internet will somehow obsolete governments--let alone why a state bureaucrat would be living in existential dread.
I assume this particular case boils down to people evading taxation, which is going to be an issue as long as the government spends any money at all. It'll be, unavoidably, the very last state function that becomes obsolete.
a) 0-10% b)10-50% c) > 50%
If you answered (a), then you and dugan might be in agreement.
That's so true. Because of such artificial barriers I need your excellent help to transfer 40 million US dollars from Nigeria to Malaysia. :).
?
1- PayPal is a poster case of why governments are needed: freezing, canceling, hijacking accounts with no rhyme, reason, nor customer service. Just imagine if banks where free to keep your cash 'coz they no longer like you. I'll use PayPal once it is regulated, meself.
2- In some countries, the government is not only about regional control and protection. Education, Health, Retirement, Social Security... To my unprofessional eyes, governments do not seem to do much worse than the private sector in those domains, on average. I'd rather study, be sick, retire or be on the dole in France than in the US.
3- Countries exist because it is easier to feel close to people with the same language and culture.
Have you traveled at all ? Not as a tourist, but staying for moth than a month in a different country, working with locals ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Only an idiot would consider an economy with almost 7% growth in a global downturn to be a lumbering, stagnant market.
Apparently, neither do you.
There are a lot of ways to remit money - western union, traditional banks, and non traditional means like Hawala which is used a lot in the subcontinent.
So if some one wants to fund terrorists in India, Paypal becomes a very useful conduit -with almost no documentation needs. This is the same reason US has tried to destroy the Hawala network - there are not good records. Traditional banking arrangements atleast provide some idea of the financial flows.
Generally US does the blocking of financial institutions etc. and Americans in general are used to accepting such laws since the 'terrorism' word is leveraged. I think India is just doing the same. If the only documentation you need to receive money is an email address....
And... there are a few higly regulated markets out there. India is one - but another significant one is Canada. Not many banks lost much in Canada. What you call innovation in banking is basically a cool way for banks to enrich themselves.
* Use customer deposits to gamble - and have so many customers, that you know if you fail, the government will have to step in.
* Use the governmental funds to then again gamble and pay yourself.
* Laugh at the fools on the sidelines who think the banks tried their best.
Only an idiot would consider an economy with almost 7% growth in a global downturn to be a lumbering, stagnant market.
If I'm wondering the streets wearing rags and staving with only 100 cents in lose change that I found by digging though bins and begging and some kind soul gives me 7 cents am I then well off?
Have you seen the poverty in India? There are endless armies of people with nothing who sleep on the streets, beg, and dig though mountains of garbage for anything of value. I have seen it myself.
It's not hard to add 7% to very nearly nothing.
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!
Not when the "FOREIGN CAPITAL" exchange service skirts the rules of responsible financial governance... or funds terrorism.
Paypal is not the only option and they should learn to play by the rules the makes sense.
They are baddie here. Banks probably don't have any issues with transferring funds to/from India. PayPal refuses to register as a bank and thus they get this issue. On the other hand, they are registered as a bank in EU and don't have any problems anymore. So perhaps they don't care about India that much?
Don't blame them [India] for wanting to know what is happening with their own currency/finances.
While I am sure it did not damage India's economy the linked article did state that some (a significant enough "some" to be worth mentioning, apparently) of them do use it to get payed for their job.
"Some" of India's 1 billion plus population might be a non-trivial number but the amounts involved are not significant in a $1 trillion plus GDP economy. Sure, some people got burned using a method that's been called into question by the regulator; it's no biggie from India's overall point of view. From Paypal's point of view though, it's significant because of the potential of the Indian market, and that's why I think it's been given such coverage - it is an American publication focused on the technology space, which means Paypal is significant to it. It's a question of perspective.
So this action by PayPal I am sure has inconvenienced many people and for any everyone that uses it as a source of income could find the next months financially challenging.
It isn't an action by Paypal, it's an action by the Indian regulator, and it's not a source of income, it's a method of payment - payment that can be achieved through other means.
So while they might not have a right to operate, I would hope any country would think twice before doing anything that would jeopardize any of its citizens legal sources of income.
The issue is that their their method of payment is under investigation. Whether it's because the payment method allows them to dodge taxes, avoid necessary official declaration or simply that it can aid money laundering, it's something that a regulator is obliged to do. If the word "terrorist" was thrown in there, for example "paypal shuttered because it potentially allows terrorists to transfer funds", would that be sufficient justification?
Note: I was not overly careful with my grammar so maybe you can find another mistake to poke fun of, if you find my logic/opinion to hard to counter.
It wasn't an issue of grammar, it was the wrong word entirely. My issue was with ignorance and the transmutation of "'ve" to "of" due to idiocy, and I called you on it to make an effort to stop it spreading. If you don't want to make an effort to proof your writing, that's your choice, but don't get defensive when you get called on it.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
When Paypal says you have $100 in your account, they actually have that money somewhere waiting for you to withdraw.
What in the world makes you think that? Not only do they probably have the money in various forms of liquid and illiquid assets, but there isn't even FDIC insurance to protect you if they screw up.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman