PayPal is looking to make its payments services more appealing to Indian freelancers and small businesses by cutting its forex exchange fee by 1 percentage point. Anupam Pahuja, general manager at PayPal India, explained that the new fees will amount to 30-40 per cent savings for Indian merchants.
PayPal recently launched its own P2P payment service called PayPal.Me, which allows cross-border payments between parties without the need to disclose sensitive banking details, "Freelancers or Sellers no longer need to send a manual payment request or detailed bank account number, SWIFT code. They can simply send their PayPal.Me link while chatting with their client and get paid right away," explained Pahuja. The new service supports 26 currencies and works with major debit & credit cards.
PayPal is strategically positioning itself to take advantage of the rising tide of freelancers in India. According to data compiled by Truelancer, a whopping 25% of the entire Indian workforce is freelancing, with freelancers contributing $400 billion to India’s GDP:
Anupam Pahuja tells The Times of India:
"India as an opportunity is not lost on PayPal. We are looking at the right way and right time to come to India. It is not a question whether we will come to India or not. It is a question of how, what and when."
