YugaTech | Philippines, Tech Reviews Blog

A lot of people were ecstatic with the news that Paypal has now added the Philippines on its list of supported countries. However, the inclusion was far from what we’re expecting. It’s even far from a half-baked launch.

The limited Paypal access only allows users from the Philippines to sign up for a Paypal account and add their US-accepted credit cards to top up their account. That means one can only send money and it has to come thru your credit card — that’s it.

You can’t even transfer from a bank account so if you don’t have any credit card, your Paypal account is basically useless. You can’t receive funds either so what’s the point?

The only other way I see this working now is if you’re a spender and the merchant you are paying only accepts Paypal. How about freelancers, designers, programmers and netrepreneurs? Will they be able to use their newly signed-up Paypal account and proudly paste that Verified Paypal badge on their website? Nope.

I think it will even confuse and frustrate their potential clients — with all the hooplah that Paypal is available in the Philippines only to find out that they can’t actually pay them enterprising Filipinos thru Paypal.

I guess this restrited launch only means one thing — eBay doesn’t trust the Philippines yet. They still think we’re just a bunch of fraudsters and hackers and I can’t blame them. Yeah, the risks still outweighs the benefits.

For the meantime, let’s just stick to what really works — Xoom.