Online payment platform PayPal is temporarily waiving transaction fees for customers from Ukraine as a show of support during the Russian invasion .
PayPal is expanding its services to allow its users to send money to Ukrainians without a transaction fee, the company announced . Before this update, users in Ukraine could only use PayPal to send money outside the country.
The expansion of PayPal services allows Ukrainian account holders to send and receive money from friends and family around the world. Ukrainian customers who receive money in their PayPal wallet will be able to transfer the funds to a bank account by linking an eligible Mastercard or Visa credit or debit card.
The payment platform also indicates that it is temporarily suspending its fees for customers who send funds to PayPal accounts in Ukraine until June 30 .
Welcome to Ukraine! @PayPal, @Dan_Schulman, thank you for supporting Ukraine and peace! pic.twitter.com/RS632fessN
— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 17, 2022
Foreign aid to Ukraine
PayPal ‘s recent updates follow a request from the Ukrainian government directing the company to implement new services that allow people in the country to receive money .
Mykhailo Fedorov , Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, congratulated PayPal’s expansion of services and shared a letter he received from the company through his official Twitter account .
“Our teams have worked intensively to identify how PayPal could better and quickly provide additional services to Ukrainians,” PayPal’s letter says. ” We believe that this service will be useful for people in Ukraine to receive money from their friends and family around the world. It will also help Ukrainian refugees in other countries, so they can receive money to use or withdraw at their current location.”
This new measure comes after PayPal closed its services in Russia at the beginning of the month, in addition to other payment companies such as Mastercard and Visa.