PayPal announced that it is expanding its money services to help Ukraine humanitarian efforts. In short, it is offering specific services that will enable people to provide help. It also included a step-by-step way for Ukrainian people to set up a PayPal account.
As the crisis deepens, there is an ever growing need to help people in the region access critical humanitarian funds. PayPal is rolling out an expansion of its services available in Ukraine to provide its customers with ways to send money quickly and securely to friends, family, and loved ones.
There are new services that PayPal has made available to the Ukrainian people:
Friends & Family P2P Payments: New and existing Ukrainian PayPal account holders will be able to send and receive peer-to-peer (P2P) payments from friends and family and to transfer funds from their Ukrainian PayPal Wallet to an eligible Mastercard or Visa debit or credit card.
Transfer Funds from PayPal Wallet: Ukrainian customers who receive money from friends and family in their Ukrainian PayPal Wallet will be able to transfer these funds to their bank account by linking an eligible Mastercard or Visa debit card, or to an eligible Mastercard or Visa debit card.
Waiving of PayPal’s Fees: In an effort to provide customer access to critical funds, PayPal will be temporarily waiving its own fees for customers sending funds to Ukrainian PayPal accounts. Xoom, PayPal’s international remittance service, is also waiving transaction fees for payments sent to recipients in Ukraine. Fees charged by a customer’s card issuer or bank may still apply.
TechCrunch reported: The announcement from PayPal follows a request from the Ukrainian government asking the payment company to roll out new services that would allow people in the country to receive access to payments. According to TechCrunch, PayPal shut down services in Russia earlier this month.
PayPal’s new services appeared after Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Federov, made his request to PayPal. On March 17, 2022, Mykhalio Federov tweeted: “Welcome to Ukraine! @PayPal, @Dan_Schulman, thank you for supporting Ukraine and peace!” The tweet included a copy of a letter that PayPal sent to “Deputy Prime Minister Federov”.
Mykhalio Federov followed up with another tweet: “Now we are waiting for you in Ukraine @Stripe [winking smile face emoji]”
I’m not a big fan of PayPal, but I am happy that the company is doing a good thing for the Ukrainian people. Maybe this will set a precedent for how PayPal responds when war breaks out somewhere else in the world.