PayPal launched in Egypt last year and Lebanon was supposedly next on the list. However, and as per their reply to Jad from the JRExpress, “there are no reasons per se why PayPal is not launching Lebanon, it’s just a matter of priorities”.
Dear Jad,
My name is Laurent Wakim and I am in charge of PayPal’s business in the MENA region.
As my colleague explained to you, when we announced the launch of PayPal services in Egypt in May, there was a misinterpretation about Lebanon’s launch. In 2012, PayPal decided to have a dedicated team focusing on the MENA region. As part of the priorities, expanding our geographic footprint is among the most important ones. That’s why we launched our business in Egypt.
Lebanon is an important market to us (and to me being Lebanese) however when PayPal looks at new opportunities, we need to prioritize them and they compete against other initiatives whether new products, new geographies, …etc. So while enabling Lebanon remains a priority for us, we don’t have any timeline that we can share. There are no reasons per se why PayPal is not launching Lebanon, it is a matter of priorities.
Thank you.
My best regards.
Laurent
Dont think that this is true
I guess we can take that as a “Not going to happen”.
Are you kidding me? What priorities are you talking about? some of the poorest countries are already using paypal for years now! Just make it happen already! Give the lebanese people an opportunity!
priorities?! countries that don’t even have roads use paypal! come on people just make it happennn
after inquiring about the issue, it seems that the one and only reason Lebanon will NEVER have paypal is because it will allow the transfer of illegal money (money laundering). NEVER!!!
source is from someone in the central bank.
just like civil marriage go to Cyprus > open a bank account > open paypal account > use it in lebanon
easy?
u can’t just use it in Lebanon , they will block you from your IP address .
I have a US bank account and i still cannot use paypal in lebanon
Can’t you just use the website using different proxy address? Or Tor browser? I suggest you try this out. Tell me if it works so i can open a paypal account (because am traveling next week), thank you.
I was at a conference less than a year ago, and Minister Sahnawi was there and we asked him about it. He said that the problem is that Paypal do not have a system in which the state can block the citizens sending money to certain countries, so a Lebanese can send money to Israel which is illegal. He also said that Paypal is working on that and it will be available soon.
Does it still matter that much if paypal launches in Lebanon?
Is paypal itself still as relevant as before?
The longer they wait to launch, the less market share they will get. Local alternatives are available, and international services like Skrill work fine, and most merchants worldwide are accepting payment cards from lebanese banks. If not, a virtual card is within reach (entropay).
We need Paypal in Lebanon, since it opens new opportunities of work especially during this economical crises in the region. With Paypal we can find another way to earn money by investing or working online. Please try to insert Lebanon in the list and I think that there are many persons here waiting only this chance to work and present their talents in the job fair.!!!!!!!!!! Thank you..
I recently got an Email explaining a “Hassle free shopping with PayPal buyer protection” they’ve got implemented in their system.
Which begs the question, why send it to me? We don’t have Paypal in Lebanon yet. Stop taunting us!
Use proxies for crying out loud! Purchase a VCC, find a virtual bank account provider, verify your PayPal account as Chinese or something, and there you have it!
common guys, we need paypal in Lebanon…
wen ba3edkon!!! fi chi esmo payoneer cards !!
ele senten besta3mel paypal b lebnen 🙂
I personally don’t live in Lebanon but my family is there and I’ve lived there for the past 9 years.
I’m sure there are many other sites that let you receive and send payments through and that would be available in Lebanon just search google an no I don’t recommend you make a PP account through a proxy server or bot or whatever, the website’s staff isn’t that dumb and their technologies are strong enough to find such things and even if PP allowed such techniques then I think having the PP account would be useless if you cannot connect it to your bank account or credit card..
I’m sure it will launch soon though!
Mahdi can be right, I’ve heard a lot about payoneer but I never personally tried how these things work so I cannot really tell you guys..
We need paypal in lebanon for god sake… weve been waiting SO MUCH…….