PayPal Now in 8 More Languages but Still Half Usable for Many
by
on November 21, 2008,
PayPal is one of the most important web services for freelancers - that’s what I learned long ago when working as a freelance translator and persuading my international clients to go through all the hassle involved in sending money my way by wire transfer. Of course you’d expect PayPal to be a better option available for quick and cheap international payments to just about anyone in the world. Right? Wrong.
Unfortunately, PayPal’s support of some countries is very limited - limited to the extent that makes this great service only half usable for international customers from a long list of countries. The thing is that in the majority of countries (Russia included) people can easily open accounts and prove their identities (even if it can be a complicated and time-consuming task), they can even connect a credit card to the account and send money to PayPal account owners elsewhere. But there is one thing these people can never do - receive any money at all.
Yet today I have received an announcement in my inbox from PayPal in the Russian language - informing me that PayPal just got tons friendlier to me and I can now use the online payments service in my own native language. Of course my initial reaction was incredible joy as I decided that together with localization I will have the limited functionality expanded to a normal version. But unfortunately the support of my language does not mean total support of my country.
The official PayPal blog has informed its readers that the service is now available in 8 new languages - Bahasa Indonesian, Danish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese and Turkish. To tell you the truth, Russian users never suffered from unavailability of PayPal in Russian but I’ve heard thousands of complains from freelancers of all types about inability to receive money from the US or European customers via PayPal. What’s more, even with the limited functionality PayPal is quite a popular service here as people use it for purchases on eBay - something rather hip and cool among Russian computer-savvy young people.
The difference between a US user of PayPal and a user from Russia is huge. I can still send money using my credit card or I can upload money to my PayPal account from my bank account in a US bank (something a rare person in Russia possesses for obvious reasons). But there is no way to request money from another user or invoice someone and expect to get your payment. If you compare my PayPal account to your PayPal account, you will probably be surprised to see only 2 tabs (‘My Account’ and ‘Send Money’) without an additional ‘Request Money” you also have in your account:
At the same time another rival electronic payments service - Moneybookers - seems to be quite fine working with Russian citizens as it allows us to receive money and withdraw them to our bank accounts without noticeable limitations. And while this is not particularly cheap, it is reasonable enough to be able to have access to quick online payments instead of waiting for days for a wire transfer to hit your bank account.
I know that Russia is a difficult country to do business in and we have lots of regulations you will need to keep in mind entering the local market. But these limitations are not impossible to deal with and are more or less manageable. Besides, I have a feeling that the revenues you can generate here with all the freelance web developers and talented designers rushing to use your service for hassle-free payments will outweigh the hassle. And I know of a huge number of businesses that will be happy to start doing businesses legally and selling their products online with PayPal instead of opening a virtual office in the US just to be able to own a normal business PayPal account. I really hope that someone in the PayPal management will think of it and shoot me a note in case you will need to find a local representative to work with, I think I have a great candidate for you. And no, we don’t have bears walking along the streets here and I can assure you we are pretty civilized.
