With Turkey residents losing a convenient option for sending and receiving payments online, the country’s online payment sector is gradually yielding to a free control market with the uptake in Bitcoin use.
Why there is no more PayPal in Turkey
PayPal no longer operates in Turkey after June 6 following the non-approval of its license by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency. Its operation in Turkey was reportedly shut down on the grounds that the American company had failed to comply with stipulated laws.
However, an existing Bitcoin exchange in the country has claimed it recorded a higher trade volume in the days of the week after the PayPal announcement. Between May 28th and June 3rd, BTCTurk claimed an unprecedented 4696 BTC, or roughly $2.7 million in total volume, according to BTCTurk’s Twitter page.
The upsurge will likely continue as the market opens up for more players to capture.
New payment services step in
Payment service provider Bitwala has joined in, filling the inherent gap to be created by Paypal’s exit from Turkey by offering free bank transfers along with Bitcoin services.
Bitwala explains to Cointelegraph:
“As Bitwala is a company build by bitcoiners, we understand the importance and the need for a super convenient, lighting-fast, and low cost way of making payments. We also understand that with PayPal out of the picture, there is a void in options for digital payment that we believe could be filled with the help of Bitcoin. This is why we are offering free transfers to our Turkish users. We believe that people, not the government, should have full ownership and control of their money and have the freedom to choose how they want to handle their financials. We would like to help our users in reaching that goal through the help of our services.”
The free transfers for Turkish users does not have a specific timeframe, it says, as it was aimed at enabling Turkish users to benefit from using Bitcoin without any form of control by the government.
Bitwala adds:
“With the media exposure on the PayPal exit and highlight on Bitcoin, we think this will definitely and positively impact the market. Bitcoin is a software independent of politics and we believe that people will recognise that value. With this in mind, we should expect over the counter trading volume to rise.”