Couple of weeks ago Paypal banned payments to and from Indian and bank withdrawals due to some regulations and tussle with RBI. I had written a post on this which can be read here: Paypal India blocks personal payments to and from India

Now it seems some relief is coming as RBI has allowed Paypal to resume local bank withdrawals from March 3^rd 2010. However the issue of personal payments will take time to resolve.

In this regard Paypal has sent an email today to all its account holders. Below is the original email:

We have been diligently working with the RBI and our business partners to resume Indian bank withdrawals for the thousands of Indian businesses who depend on PayPal to sell their goods or services in the global marketplace.

Today, we are happy to announce that the RBI has allowed us to continue local bank withdrawals for settlements for exports of goods and services.  We are currently making changes to comply with Indian regulations for settlements for exports of goods and services, and we anticipate that, as of Wednesday, March 3rd, customers will be able to use our bank withdrawal service.

As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal. This information is required under the current laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.

On Monday, March 1st, we will be back in touch with specific instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account.

Moving forward, the RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific approvals to allow personal remittances to India, which we currently do not have.  Until we get these approvals, personal payments into India will remain suspended.  However, if you are an exporter, you will continue to be able to use the PayPal service for payments of goods and services.  In fact, with the changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a more powerful engine for exporters in India.  With purpose codes for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificates), you should now be able to get the export related benefits you seek.

You can check the PayPal blog for additional updates.

www.thepaypalblog.com

We thank you for your business and for your patience during the past few weeks.

Sincerely,

PayPal

If you have any updates on this, please post it in comments

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A couple of weeks ago Chinese hackers tried to hack the servers of Google and other US top corporations and tried to steal important trade and strategic data. You can read the post here: Google China scuffle with Government over censorship

In a recent findings be various top computer security experts from National Security Agency and others, they have traced back the attacks from two top educational institutes in China.

They also said the attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing email of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed. Google announced on January 12 that it and other companies had been subjected to sophisticated attacks that probably came from China.

The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School, according to people with knowledge of the probe who asked for anonymity.

Jiaotong has one of China’s top computer science programs. Just a few weeks ago its students won an international computer programming competition organized by IBM beating out Stanford and other top-flight universities.

Lanxiang, in Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google.

Let us see what happens in the future…

If you have any comments, please post it here

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PayPal is the easiest and safest online transaction platform for receiving and sending money through internet. PayPal which is part of eBay Inc group has now blocked personal payments to and from India over some new licensing rules and guidelines by Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In addition, it has also suspended the bank transfer options, which is causing a lot of problems to small customers and particularly freelancers who are unable to withdraw funds in their bank accounts.

However director for global communications at PayPal, Anuj Nayar assured that local bank withdrawals will be made available in few days and they are in process of talks with their banking partners.

But the personal payments service will remain suspended for coming months until they do not get solutions with regulators.

PayPal India has a relatively smaller market. In 2008, out of total $60 billion in online transaction, around $4 billion was from Asia and the majority was from Australia.

Australia is fourth largest market of PayPal after US, Canada and UK.

Do you have any updates on this issue, please post in the comments and let us know

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Inspired by Twitter and Facebook, Google has finally launched its social media feature in Gmail called as Google Buzz.

Social media has been a prime factor in online world and no one can deny its importance, so the search giant has played its cards in social networking too.

There were rumors that Google is going to launch such features some times back and now it is reality.

Features of Google Buzz:

1. You can share updates, just like twitter and Facebook.
2. Share photos, videos and more with your network
3. No setup required; the system makes you automatically following the users with whom you email and chat frequently.
4. Within one interface of Gmail, you access everything in one place.

So go and try it today.

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Google issued a warning to a Chinese web portal Goojje, charging it with the infringement of trademarks rights. It asked the portal to stop using a logo which resembles the official logo of Google, failing to which the portal may face legal action. Google expressed its concern that the users could believe that the portal Goojje is linked to the company.

Goojje’s logo resembles the logo of Google Inc and also bears a paw print sign like that of Baidu Inc, the biggest Internet search engine in China and Google Inc’s arch rival in the country. The portal’s interface is also similar to those of Google and Baidu.

A cease and desist letter has been served to the owners and operators of Goojje by Google through a law firm based in Beijing. Google warned the website to stop using its logo by Monday or they will file a law suit against them.

In reply of these allegations the founder of the website Huang Jiongxuan said that they have invested around 30000 Yuan (US $ 4400) for the website to setup and their team has spent a considerable amount to time to make it happen. He further added that they have no plan to close it down despite any threat.

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