PayPal forced to shut down in Turkey

In a move that will affect hundreds of thousands of consumers and thousands of businesses, PayPal says that it is shutting down in Turkey next week after local regulators rejected its license applications.

3 comments

PayPal forced to shut down in Turkey

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

In a notice on its site, the global giant says that from 6 June it will cease its activities in Turkey and that customers will not be able to send and receive money via their PayPal accounts. Balances can be moved to Turkish bank accounts.

PayPal says that it has been forced into suspending payment processing after its payment license application was denied by the financial regulator, BDDK.

The US-based company told TechCrunch that the license was denied because of a new rule in Turkey that requires IT systems to be based in the country.

"We respect Turkey’s desire to have information technology infrastructure deployed within its borders, however, PayPal utilises a global payments platform that operates across more than 200 markets, rather than maintaining local payments platforms with dedicated technology infrastructure in any single country," PayPal told TechCrunch.

Despite this, the company says it is working towards obtaining the permits needed to start operating again, although it has provided no indication of when this might be.

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Comments: (3)

A Finextra member 

I'm sure that Turkey's development and recent launch of its new national payments system, Troy, has nothing to do with the decision to deny PayPal's application.....

A Finextra member 

It is not exactly a new requirement. I was informed of the need to host consumer data in country over 5 years ago.

A Finextra member 

in orijinaly troy competitor of visa/master not a paypal so reason is paypal never want to pay tax paypal Turkey office noting pay tax for revenue from Turkey also paypal will be open sortl

Secont reason is Turkey have lisensing regulatiton pay company and forex must be in turkey and/with tax paying firm 

 

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