PayPal to commence operations in Tunisia

On May 21, 2017, the Minister of Communication Technologies and Digital Economy in Tunisia announced that PayPal would begin providing its services in Tunisia even before this June.

So far, the PayPal service was not active in Tunisia, raising not only questions on the subject in the company website, but also a protest campaign which also took place on social media.  Among other activities, a Facebook event was organized, calling on people to demonstrate on January 25, 2015, before Tunisia’s Central Bank. About 15 thousand people took part in that demonstration. Another measure used was the hashtag #WinouPayPal on Twitter and Facebook. The protest produced a meeting between representatives of the protesters and officials in the Central Bank at the time.

The protest called on the local government to remove the strict limitations on PayPal, which were imposed due to the Central Bank’s concern that the PayPal payment service would threaten the strict trade policy in the country and the limitations on trade in local dinar which were put in place to make sure that it is used within Tunisia to support local industry.  However, these limitations hinder private and business users alike, as they are deprived of access to an international means of payment which is accepted throughout the world for carrying out business transactions.