Buoyed by India story, PayPal may bring full suite of payment offerings

MUMBAI: PayPal, the company that pioneered online payments, is evaluating options to bring its full suite of payment offerings to India.

The newly-listed company has struggled in the Indian market in the past, as it faced issues with the Reserve Bank of India. The RBI wanted the company to transfer the money held in its accounts to a bank within a pre-determined period, limiting its traditional functions.

Currently, PayPal facilitates cross-border purchases for merchants and consumers in India. Globally, about 24% of the company’s business comes from this line. “We are looking at our options to see what we can bring to India,” Vikram Narayan, managing director and country manager at PayPal India, told ET. “We are talking to merchants and customers to see their pain-points. I can't give you a timeframe.”

India is an important geography for the company after its separation from parent eBay. And the competition is fierce as a slew of digital wallets and payment service providers are raising billions of dollars to take pole position in the market. Companies like Paytm have partnered with Alibaba, which has its own payment arm Alipay. Even ecommerce giants like Snapdeal are looking at the financial services space.

But PayPal said it is confident about its role in the Indian market. “We have hundreds of thousands of merchants in India using PayPal for cross-border trade. We also have millions of consumers in the country. We also acquired Xoom, which is a money remittance company, and India is a large remittance destination,” Narayan said.

In 2014, PayPal processed about $235 billion in payment volume, or about 4 billion transactions.