PayPal is expanding its services to allow its users to send money to Ukrainians, the company announced on Thursday. Prior to this expansion, users in Ukraine could only use PayPal to send money out of the country. The expansion allows Ukrainian PayPal account holders to send and receive payments from friends and family around the world. Ukrainian customers who receive money in their PayPal Wallet will be able to transfer the funds to their bank account by linking an eligible Mastercard or Visa debit or credit card.
PayPal also announced that it’s temporarily waiving its fees for customers sending funds to Ukrainian PayPal accounts or receiving funds into Ukrainian PayPal accounts through June 30. Xoom, which is the company’s international remittance service, will also be waiving transaction fees for payments sent to recipients in Ukraine.
The announcement from PayPal follows a request from the Ukrainian government asking the payments company to roll out new services that would allow people in the country to receive access to payments.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, applauded the expansion on Twitter and shared a letter he received from PayPal.
“Our teams have worked intensively to identify how PayPal could best and quickly provide additional services to Ukrainians,” the letter from PayPal reads. “We believe this service with be helpful for people in Ukraine to receive money from their friends and relatives around the world. It will also help Ukrainian refugees in other countries, so they can receive money to use or withdraw in their current location.”
Ukrainian customers will be able to send and receive funds from their Ukrainian PayPal Wallet in USD, CAD, GBP and EUR. Once a customer transfers their funds from their PayPal Wallet to an eligible debit or credit card, the money will be available in the currency associated with that card.
Today’s announcement comes as PayPal shut down services in Russia earlier this month. PayPal isn’t the only payments company to pull out of the country, as Mastercard and Visa both suspended network services in Russia.
Since the war began, people have been looking for ways to financial support Ukrainians. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has said some people around the world have been booking Airbnbs in Ukraine, without the intention to stay in them, to send financial help to hosts in the country. Ukraine has also received cryptocurrency donations worth tens of millions of dollars from people looking to aid its war effort against Russia.
PayPal’s expanded services will facilitate a more direct way to support Ukrainians. The company says these new services will start to become available today.
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