SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT; PAYPAL IN KENYA, PART (1) OF (3)
Having A PayPal Account In Kenya
The issue of having a PayPal account in Kenya and other African countries has for the past couple of years ignited a lot of uncertainty and speculations. What I’d like to ascertain to all of you is that PayPal is available and active in Kenya today! For those who may not be aware about what PayPal is, here’s a brief description about it and how it came into being.
What Is PayPal?
PayPal is one of the leading global e-commerce businesses that make it possible for it’s more than 232 million user base to carry out money transfer in the online world. It’s used by majority if not all the online merchants as an express method of payment checkout.
PayPal was founded in 1998 by Ken Howery, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Luke Nosek and Peter Thiel and was later bought by E-bay in October 2002 for $1.5 billion shifting its headquarters from Palo Alto, California to San Jose, California. In 2011 PayPal made it possible for it’s over 100 million active users to be able to send, receive and hold 25 different currencies. In 2011 PayPal generated $4.4 billion in revenue.
Having A PayPal Account In Kenya:Setting The Record Straight
At the beginning I said that PayPal was available in Kenya (you can have a PayPal account in Kenya) but how do I know you might ask? Well I happen to have a PayPal account in Kenya and I’ll tell you about my personal experience regarding how I got it and set the record straight for once and for all.
In June 2011, I set about looking for a way to get a PayPal account in Kenya because I had interests in the online world (buying products and services, a good example being how I paid for the domain and hosting of www.scopegater.com though that’s a story for another day).
What made me look for a way to get a PayPal account in Kenya was mainly because of its security features while conducting online transactions-you only give out your email address to merchants and nothing more; PayPal does the rest. To register for a PayPal account in Kenya all you need is either a debit or credit card and a working/valid email address.
Having a credit card asks for many requirements; your latest three months pay slips, a copy of your utility bill e.g. electricity bill, your latest three months bank statements as well as having a regular income. This is why I settled for a KCB General Purpose Card. This card is different from all the others and the best part is you don’t need to have an account with KCB to get one! It looks like something similar to this:
KCB General Purpose Card
In order to register for the KCB General purpose Card, I had to pay Kes.1000, give them a copy of my ID and one passport size photo. The Kes.1000 is for the card (Kes.500) and processing of the documents (Kes.500). Unless you want to wait for 5 months to get your card and another month for your pin like I did (I applied through one of their Nairobi branches (but do I mention?)), I’d advise you to go to the KCB card center situated at the Sarit Centre, 2nd floor in Westlands, Nairobi like I did in the end after being frustrated and you’ll get your card and pin within two weeks. (If you don’t live within Nairobi or its outskirts, you can visit your nearest branch but be sure to do a proper follow up)
Registering For A PayPal account in Kenya
After I had my KCB General Purpose Card and had deposited some money into my account, I went to PayPal’s official website and registered for a personal account (They offer personal or merchant accounts though you can later upgrade from a personal account to a merchant account later on). You are required to have your card and a working email address for registration. They will charge you $1.95 that will be refunded once you confirm your account; so make sure you deposit some money in your KCB General Purpose Card whose amount should be greater than this (i.e. more than $1.95).
My PayPal account was active in seconds but I had to confirm it so as to make it possible for me to send and receive funds and this meant I needed to get the transaction code (4 digit code) from my bank (In this case KCB) involving the $1.95 I had been charged by PayPal during the registration process to confirm that I was indeed the true owner of the account.
I took a short trip to the KCB Card Center at the Sarit Center where i got the transaction code (4 digit code) in less than a minute and FREE OF CHARGE! I rushed back home, confirmed my PayPal account and got the $1.95 refunded back. That’s was how I got my PayPal account in Kenya.
Hey, nice article. you seem to have gone through unecessary pain. Sorry for that.
Well for those who intend to get an account (the one mentioned above) and you cant access the card center, you can do it in any KCB branch normally has less traffic like KCB University Way or KCB KICC. When you are there lias with the customer care desk/service in the branch. If you have an issue with your bank statements or anything to do with you card account contact the customer care service either by a call or by the best method which is an email see http://www.kcbbankgroup.com for the correct email. btw to get your pin use an postal address closest to you.
Thanks Maxwell for the reply. For those who may be some distance away from the Card Center,you should follow Maxwell’s instructions. It seems the part (3):The solution, will be now shortened.
Are there charges related to the whole thing? I mean, are there charges on the card for transactions? Do you withdraw straight to the card and must you have a KCB account?
Hi IamVW. There aren’t any charges on the card for transactions apart from what you’re buying. Sadly you cannot withdraw money from your Paypal account into the card, Paypal doesn’t offer that in Kenya yet though if you so desire one must open up an account in the US. Having a KCB account isn’t necessary. You can go and apply for the card even without a current KCB account,that’s one of the great things about it.But there’s a monthly charge of Kes100