Equity Bank Kenya customers who also double up as PayPal users have something to smile about right at the start of the year: they can now transfer money from their PayPal wallets to their Equity Bank accounts instantly.
The development has been announced to customers via an alert from the bank this morning.
“Exciting News! It s now INSTANT to withdraw money from your PayPal account into your Equity account,” one of the text messages sent to customers by the bank reads.
For a while, Equity Bank provided the easiest way for PayPal users in the country to move money from their online wallets and convert it to physical cash. That was before Safaricom and M-Pesa entered the picture with their M-Pesa Global program that saw PayPal incorporated in the popular mobile money platform nearly 6 years ago. Being the most used mobile money service in the country, this meant that there was little need, even for Equity Bank customers, to bother with the bank’s service.
In 2020, PayPal-to-M-Pesa withdrawals became instantaneous, increasing M-Pesa’s popularity as the go-to platform for most Kenyans transacting with PayPal to withdraw their money as it was a stark contrast to the 3 working days it once took to fulfil PayPal to Equity Bank withdrawals.
Typically, PayPal-to-M-Pesa transactions take a few minutes to complete. The withdrawal request approval arrives almost instantly before the money lands on one’s M-Pesa wallet minutes later.
Late last year, Equity Bank sought to regain lost ground by migrating PayPal withdrawals from its old web-based portal to the Equity Mobile app and its Equity Online service, the institution’s internet banking platform. “This shift will boost efficiency for Kenyans who receive payments through the international payment solutions provider,” the bank said at the time. Still, withdrawals from PayPal using the bank’s app and the internet banking platform took a day (24 hours).
In Kenya and around Africa, PayPal is plagued by user complaints of frequent flagging of accounts that in most cases result in their freezing and, in some cases, outright suspension from the service, something we looked at in episode 28 of our 24Bit podcast about 3 years ago. Listen!
