14 DAY TRIAL // PayPal has been having plenty of trouble in India as the national Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has put several limitations on what users can do with the payment system in the country, related to export and money withdrawal issues.
PayPal has complied with the demands and regulations and is now asking Indian users for even more information to be added to their accounts.
Specifically, PayPal, in a new round of notifications, is asking all users in the country to include a Purpose Code, Permanent Account Number (PAN) and an Indian Bank account to their PayPal accounts.
None of these are PayPal's idea, they stem from the RBI Guidelines for online payment providers. These guidelines require payment providers to report all purpose codes to the central bank.
Any transaction handled by the providers also needs to be reported along with all relevant details. User accounts will be audited as well, every quarter.
"As part of our ongoing effort to comply with the requirements set out in the notification of the Reserve Bank of India ('RBI Guidelines') that apply to all online payment gateways, all PayPal users in India will be required to add the following [purpose code, PAN and a bank account in India] to their PayPal account in order to continue to receive export-related payments and withdraw money," PayPal told India customers in an email.
PayPal is also reminding Indian customers to make sure that personal data, more specifically a current and accurate postal address is available in their account info.
PayPal announced new, very limiting, rules for its operations in the country, early this year. Users there can't pay anything with money they receive from transactions and they also can't store funds in their account, everything goes to an India bank account. There is also a limit of $500 per transaction for payments.