PayPal optimistic about growing business in PHL

Global digital payments provider PayPal Pte. Ltd. is optimistic business will grow further in the Philippines as more Filipinos engage in freelance work.

Citing results of the a survey it commissioned in October 2017, PayPal head of strategic partnerships for Southeast Asia Abhinav Kumar said that 86 percent of 500 Filipino freelancers surveyed expected to be doing a lot more work in the future.

PayPal and commissioned London-based Netfluential in October last year. The independent research firm actually conducted the online survey of freelancers and those interested to become freelancers in local languages across 22 markets globally.

“Philippines is one of the fastest growing markets for us in this part of the world," Kumar said.

The PayPal executive noted there are approximately 1.5 million freelancers in the Philippines.

The country has among the largest number of freelance service providers relative to country population at 2 percent, Kumar noted, citing data from the Department of Information and Communications Technology.

“This gives us confidence that this is a growing industry,” he said.

Results of the survey also showed that 92 percent of respondents said PayPal is their preferred online payments platform, and 89 percent said they preferred to withdraw funds via PayPal.

“We believe that we are extremely relevant to this segment, given our platform transcends boundaries and allows them to accept payments in multiple currencies,” Kumar noted.

He said that 34 percent of the freelancers in the survey did data entry work and internet research, while around 13 percent did virtual assistance work and 8 percent did customer service.

Majority of the respondents or 58 percent cited the “ability to work from anywhere” as the main reason for going into freelancing, while 45 percent noted “greater flexibility of schedules.”

Around 71 percent of respondents cited “ease” as the main reason for using PayPal, Kumar said. —VDS, GMA News