Update: PayPal to resume Bank Withdrawals in India after RBI approval

Currently, PayPal is having a lot of trouble in India. They stopped personal payments to and from Indian PayPal accounts, only business transactions were allowed through PayPal, and also Bank Withdrawal requests were being refunded after about 10 days. This was all due to PayPal not complying with new RBI policies.

Today, I got this e-mail from PayPal.

PayPal

Dear Shobhit Prabhakar,

We have been diligently working with the RBI and our business
partners to resume Indian bank withdrawals for the thousands
of Indian businesses who depend on PayPal to sell their goods
or services in the global marketplace.

Today, we are happy to announce that the RBI has allowed us
to continue local bank withdrawals for settlements for exports
of goods and services. We are currently making changes to
comply with Indian regulations for settlements for exports of
goods and services, and we anticipate that, as of Wednesday,
March 3rd, customers will be able to use our
bank withdrawal service.

As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a
new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal.
This information is required under the current laws of India in
order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.

On Monday, March 1st, we will be back in touch with specific
instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account.

Moving forward, the RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific
approvals to allow personal remittances to India, which we
currently do not have. Until we get these approvals, personal
payments into India will remain suspended. However, if you are
an exporter, you will continue to be able to use the PayPal
service for payments of goods and services. In fact, with the
changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a
more powerful engine for exporters in India. With purpose codes
for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance
Certificates), you should now be able to get the export
related benefits you seek.

You can check the PayPal blog for additional updates.

www.thepaypalblog.com

We thank you for your business and for your patience during
the past few weeks.

Sincerely,

PayPal

This might bring some relief to Indian exporters with valid IEC (Import Export Code), but the rest of the service providers like us will have to first get Export code, which in itself a troublesome task in India. Also there might be some tough time ahead for PayPal after this, as RBI will be keeping an eye on PayPal’s operations.
I guess I’ll be going with some other Payment processor until PayPal becomes fully functional and convenient again.