PayPal Extends Service To 4 African Nations

Millions of customers in Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and six other countries globally will now be able to use PayPal online payment service, increasing financial inclusion among the unbanked.

Other countries that will now be able to use PayPal service include Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro and Paraguay. This would bring the number of country PayPal serve to two hundred and three.

The on-line payment service extension came years after countries like Nigeria have been sidelined due to reports of financial fraud.

PayPal originally offers "send money" services to customers to enable them purchase goods and services at PayPal-authorised merchant sites while protecting their financial details at a fee that is covered by the merchants.

However, once the service is launched, people with internet access and an authorised bank card will be able to register for a PayPal account and make payments to millions of sites worldwide.

PayPal Executive in Charge of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, Rupert Keeley told Reuters in an interview that reinvention of the company’s service to suit mobile phones has allowed it to extend its service to fast-growing developing markets.

On its service offering, keeley said for now, the company does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers.

“It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services,” he added.

Established in 2007, PayPal has about 150 million active accounts from which it generated $1.8 billion revenue in Q1 2014.