Freelancers to receive PayPal payments through third-party firm

ISLAMABAD: PayPal is not coming directly to Pakistan by opening up its office or allowing payment through its account but has agreed to sign an agreement with a company called Payoneer (a digital payment service) for securing money of freelancers from abroad and remit it into account of recipient’s bank here in the country.

It is yet to be seen how much this company Payoneer is going to charge on its services for transferring the amount from both sides, PayPal and working freelancers. There are around 4 million freelancers operating in the country out of which around 1.5 million work on a permanent basis. It has been considered a growing phenomenon in Pakistan, especially among youth equipped with IT skills.

In order to place this system, the PayPal and Payoneer are signing an agreement. The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom also signed an agreement with PayPal for placing a framework to make this arrangement operational. The Ministry of IT & Telecom is going to announce this mechanism during this week on January 11, 2024.

Now the freelancers would be able to open dollar accounts but they would have to retain 50 percent amount in US dollar in their accounts. The caretaker government thus fulfilled one of the major demands of freelancers in the country. Federal Minister for IT & Telecom Dr Umair Saif stated in a video message that there were good news that Pakistani freelancers would be able to receive their money through PayPal.

“We have devised such a mechanism under which there would be no need to open up PayPal account.

Now anyone sitting outside Pakistan could send money through its PayPal account and then the money could be received in Pakistani banks.”