Digital money transferring service Xoom, a PayPal service, was launched in Bangladesh on Thursday.
The prime minister’s ICT adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy inaugurated its operations for Bangladeshis at PayPal+Xoom and Freelancer Conference in Dhaka.
Joy, who was a chief guest at programme, said, “The Bangladesh expatriates have been sending their remittances through various channels at the cost of high charges and hassles.”
“From now on they will be able to send money through a PayPal account within 2 hours,” he added.
Addressing the programme, state minister for information and technology Junaid Ahmed Palak said, “Bangladesh is second in the world in terms of freelancing and the country’s freelancers have long been waiting for this service.”
He did add that this service will only enable people to receive money. They cannot send money abroad. However, they are working on bringing PayPal’s full-fledged services here, he further said.
Paypal is currently available in 203 countries across the world. In 29 of these countries they provide full fledged service while in 103 they only have inbound service.
Earlier, Paypal account holders were not able to send money to Bangladesh from other countries. From now on, they can send money to Bangladesh using their Paypal wallet.
The charge is $4.99 for sending less than $1,000, but for $1,000 or higher it’s free.
The Xoom service will be available through Sonali Bank, Rupali Bank, Agrani Bank, Janata Bank, Social Islami Bank, Uttara Bank, Pubali Bank, The City Bank, and Islami Bank.
Source: Prothom Alo
