PremiumBENGALURU : American digital payments major, PayPal Inc. on Friday said that it will be winding down its payment operations in the country and will shut down its domestic payment services in India, starting April 1.
PayPal was offering its payment gateway to Indian brands and online merchants, as well as providing international remittance services for small and medium enterprises including exporters, in the country.
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Moving forward, the company will look at streamlining its focus towards enabling cross-border payments for small and medium enterprise (SME) merchants.
“We believe PayPal can have the greatest positive impact in India’s economic recovery by pivoting our business to support our customers where they need us most. From 1 April 2021, we will focus all our attention on enabling more international sales for Indian businesses, and shift focus away from our domestic products in India. This means we will no longer offer domestic payment services within India from 1 April," said a PayPal spokesperson in a written response.
The company also said that it will continue to invest in product development through its India arm as it builds for SMEs selling to international customers.
“We will continue to invest in product development that enables Indian businesses to reach nearly 350 million PayPal consumers worldwide, increase their sales internationally, and help the Indian economy return to growth […] In fact, PayPal processed $1.4 billion worth of international sales for over 360,000 merchants in India last year," the spokesperson added.
The Indian payment gateway space has become competitive over the years with several players including Razorpay, PayU India, MobiKwik’s Zaakpay and Paytm Payments Gateway vying for the top spot.
As per its latest earning results, PayPal Inc. claimed to have close to 377 million active merchant accounts, and processed $277 billion in payment value alone in the last quarter (Q4) of 2020.
PayPal reported net revenues of $6.12 billion in the last quarter of 2020, with the total net revenues for the year standing at $21.4 billion for the company.
