PayPal launches domestic payments as it expands its India operations; focusses on customers and merchants as well

PayPal has launched its domestic payments platform in India in a bid to expand its trade in the Indian market. The digital payments giant which has been long known for its cross-border transactions will now show up with merchants and services within India as well.

With PayPal now operating from India, consumers will now be able to use the service to shop online at popular business. While the list when it comes to services, falls a bit short of what e-wallet competitors have on offer, this is still the very beginning of the payment giant’s India leg and there is a lot more to come not just at the consumer end, but for the merchants as well.

At the launch event, PayPal’s Anupam Pahuja, commented that PayPal will work with both consumers and merchants. While using PayPal, opens up their choices to millions of merchants worldwide, it will also give merchants more than just a chance to get business. PayPal will also provide its merchants with back end data as well that should, in theory, help them grow their business.

Stressing on what PayPal has on offer for Indian customers, CEO, PayPal Private Limited and SVP, general manager, APAC, Rohan Mahadevan pointed that the brand is basically based on three pillars, reliability, safety and security.

“Today is a landmark day for us at PayPal as we launch our domestic service in a market which has all ingredients to become a true digital economy. Over two decades we have focused on products, services and strategic partnerships with a singular focus of becoming a champion for our customers, helping millions of people around the world participate in the digital economy. India’s digital payment journey is on a high growth trajectory and we are proud to be a part of it. We are excited about our prospects in a market that is highly inspirational and aspirational.” he said.

Mahadevan claimed that the brand has worked with regulators, law enforcement agencies the world over to keep their systems safe and secure. He also said that PayPal invests a lot money in the security of its services (without disclosing any figures).

As for the technology, Pahuja said that PayPal is device agnostic for consumers, and that it basically takes ten lines of code for a merchant to onboard themselves on to the service. This is supposed to faster and easier to adopt than the UPI route, and it also makes the merchant’s business compliant with many other payment systems as well apart from UPI .

As for consumers, there’s the PayPal app, that gets them on board the payment system. It does not necessarily function as an e-wallet because PayPal is device agnostic and is mostly to do with the availability from the merchants, website, app or service.

PayPal claims that none of its customer data is ever shared with merchants or any third-party and because your bank account is connected to it, you will need to change your card details just once, and not on every service, website or app you use for purchases, if you happen to replace your card or lose it.

Free return shipping also comes to India, where consumers can return their goods to the merchant if they are not satisfied with the  quality or the product. PayPal pays for the return shipping.

Another attractive benefit for customers is that PayPal will let customers files a dispute with a merchant up to six months (or 180 days) and even provide multilingual customer support from its support operations in India.

According to Pahuja, an average PayPal customer’s query is resolved in less than 30 seconds, with some bigger cases solved in 5 minutes.

As for the services that are yet to come, PayPal plans on introducing EMI facilities for customers and even provide working capital for merchants to kickstart or grow their businesses.

It has partnered with other online services as well. Bookmyshow, a partner of PayPal said, “The digital payments ecosystem in India is rapidly evolving as increasing number of people are realising the convenience associated with online payments. Globally, PayPal is among the preferred, safe and trusted modes of payment and with their entry in India. This ecosystem will get further developed. Faster and seamless checkouts is a major contributor towards the overall experience on BookMyShow and we look forward to a fruitful partnership with PayPal.”