Imp: In current scenario when PayPal has spelled a bad news for Indian merchants, freelancers & entrepreneurs, this one is an important info to know…Read On !
The outrage from PayPal users belonging to India was pretty much expected over the news that broke last saturday and public rage was quite evident with the flaming comments that we received against RBI on our post on newly amended PayPal policy for Indians.
But now when PayPal has already taken the steps in order to comply with RBI policies and will have to bring new policies into implementation starting March 1, Indian users are eagerly looking for viable PayPal alternatives.
For our readers, we have included a list of ‘PayPal alternatives‘ that you may consider trying out but there are important things to know before you jump over and start using any other service right away. May be, after reading this post, you might prefer sticking to PayPal rather than wasting your time messing up with some new service.
Some Reality Check
No ‘PayPal Alternative’ is a long term solution: PayPal came under RBI scrutiny as PayPal became so popular among Indian freelancers and small businesses that volume of transactions through PayPal to/from India couldn’t be ignored by Indian regulators anymore. Now, even if some other PayPal alternative such as AlertPay grows as popular as PayPal in India, RBI will do the same treatment with AlertPay, soon or later. AlertPay or any other service for that matter, will do the same as PayPal did today, because no ‘PayPal alternative’ would like to be treated as a ‘bank’ and be regulated by Indian authorities, like any other Indian bank does.
Rest of the world will stick to PayPal: No matter what policies PayPal brings up for Indians, the rest of the world would be least bothered about it and hence, International clients for Indian PayPal users are always going to prefer PayPal over any other service due to world-renowned brand power and unmatchable service reliability.
Now, if your client is not even willing to try out a new service for sending you payments, you can’t force them to pay you through your preferred online transaction service.
PayPal has unmatchable Trust and Reliability: PayPal, a global brand today, has slowly become the de-facto standard for instant online payments and International transactions. In fact, it’s online popularity is at par with Credit card payment companies such as MasterCard or Visa.
It’s surprising but even Google powered Checkout service has done no significant harm to PayPal’s authority and monopoly so far and given the trust and credibility that PayPal has created so far, they are unlikely to be beaten down in their own turf.
Risks involved with PayPal Alternatives: Whenever you try out a new service/PayPal alternative and give it your credit card details & make it your e-wallet for receiving your payments, you also put a lot at stake on that service. You can’t afford that service to have any performance lags or security holes. You want that service to always keep a check on all security aspects and keep your money safe, always. You want that service to auto-detect any illegal transactions that ever happen with you and defend you when some hacker breaks into your account and does something illegal with your hard-earned money.
It’s unfortunate but true that there’s barely any other global service that keeps your money and financial credentials as secure as PayPal does. The records don’t lie. That means, if you’re going to try out any PayPal alternative in future, you’re also taking a fair amount of risk by putting stakes at some new, inexperienced service that might even shut down in some worst case scenario.
Keeping all above points in perspective, take a look at these PayPal alternatives and decide if you really should make a transition or not.
Here’s the list:
Moderately known services:
Moneybookers
AlertPay
DirecPay
Remit2India
Lesser known services
paymate.com
TrialPay
digitalriver.com
OboPay
bitcoin.org
neteller.com
Strictpay
Perfectmoney