On Sunday, St Vincent minister of finance Camilo Gonsalves stated that the availability of PayPal in SVG is still under development.
The utilisation of the platform by young entrepreneurs from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has become increasingly prevalent. However, a persistent issue arises as entrepreneurs attempt to receive payments through PayPal via local banks.
Gonsalves on Sunday said PayPal has most recently requested some information that they had already given to them, information about SVG’s legal structure and laws.
“We continue to reiterate that those laws are standard laws. They have the same law in Saint Vincent as it is in Saint Lucia, as it is in Grenada. I engaged the international compliance individual at PayPal again a few weeks ago, and they once again requested something that we’d already sent them. But we’ve sent it again. And so we’ll have to see how that develops after they’ve analysed it.”
Gonsalves stated that the ball is now in PayPal court.
“It’s really a decision for PayPal to make. We’re making the case to PayPal that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines legal framework is identical to the legal framework of all the other countries in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and that all of us together should have the same package.”
The finance minister said there are variations currently, not just between Saint Vincent and the others but between Saint Vincent and Antigua and Antigua and Saint Lucia and Grenada, and Dominica. “So we’re trying to standardise it by explaining to the private sector entity, which is PayPal, that all of us are really the same family.”
Gonsalves had stated in February of 2024 that PayPal had expressed the view that St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) lacks a substantial client base, therefore diminishing the significance of their operations in the country, a point which he more or less reiterated on Sunday.
They’re not hugely motivated because when they do the math, it’s 100,000 people.” You know, it might be, you know, 15,000 transactions. It’s something that we have to stay on top of them to sort of nag them into doing the work. But we think we’re getting closer.”
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is a multinational financial technology firm based in the United States that operates an online payments system in the majority of countries that enable online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders.
