Sri Lanka to enable PayPal

By Charumini de Silva

In a bid to achieve an export target of $ 50 billion and explore advancements in digital commerce, Sri Lanka will soon enable the PayPal online payment gateway.

“PayPal will be allowed. We want to ensure that the local financial system also benefits in this digital commerce era,” ICTA CEO Muhunthan Canagey said. 

“Allowing Paypal to operate here would be a very simple task; it’s only a matter of having them open, having the wallets being enabled internationally. But it can’t be stopped, it has to be opened and it is going to open very soon,” said Canagey while speaking at the recently concluded Sri Lanka Economic Summit under the theme of ‘Towards Exports of $ 50 billion’. 

Highlighting the current drawbacks with online payments, Canagey said: “I understand that right now in digital commerce there is an issue where financial institutions are charging around Rs. 70,000 for a payment gateway.”

He explained that with the implementation of a payment platform in collaboration with local banking and financial institutions, the payment issue would be addressed. “There is no issue regarding the payments,” Canagey confirmed.