How to Bring Paypal Money into Kenya – Epay Response to the Challenge

Do check out the update on ePAY-Kenya rates at the end of this blog.

Barely a week passes without having to direct a starting freelancer to various comments on my blog on how to deal with the challenge of ‘How to Bring Paypal Money into Kenya’. Like many other people who do online work internationally from Kenya will tell you, bringing Paypal into Kenya as a one stop shop is currently IMPOSSIBLE.

With no limit to the sarcasm, Paypal is okay with you giving services abroad, as long as if you do happen to be paid, you spend it abroad. That in my limited opinion, unless they have another explanation, is why they opened up the bit where you can be paid in foreign currency through them, you can even spend KES abroad through them, but you cannot bring foreign currency into Kenya through them. I make no apologies either for saying; that is so last century, Paypal!

Meanwhile, I have also supported and recommended the services of ePAY-Kenya, but alongside other users, have continued to vent about their rates. In a brave show of professional Customer Support, they have been kind enough to take time to actually demystify their rates. Here is ePAY-Kenya's justification. Hopefully, it will help those using their services to understand what they are actually paying for. 

From Caesar: I work with ePAY-KENYA and need to demystify two issues; one being our rates and the second being our exchange rate of shilling (KES) to the dollar (USD).

Our Rates: In this business, our stakes are high in terms of exposure to cyber thieves, but most importantly is the cost of partnering with the third party gateways which enable us to avail the service to you. They not only charge a premium (fee), especially [service provider edited], but the third party gateways also retain a significant amount of our earnings for their security reasons. (Unfortunately, as in all businesses, these costs must be passed on to the consumer.)

Our Exchange Rate KES to USD: Our exchange rates are determined by the ‘trend’ rather than the actual mean Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) rates for the day. This is so because our funds are remitted on a fortnight basis, or every two weeks. If for instance we give a rate as per the CBK mean rate today, by the time we receive the USD in two weeks, the rate will most certainly be different.

For that reason, and to ensure business sustainability, we cushion potential loss that would result from dollar fluctuation. We however try to make the best estimates based on the trend. Kindly bear with us on this; we want only the best for our customers. (In short, in order to ensure that you can continue to work with our services from on week to the next, we must plan ahead). 

*Text in brackets are blog admin's clarification.

Update from Epay-Kenya - May 2012 

We are happy to announce the reduction of deposit transaction fee from 12% + USD 1.5 per transaction to 10% + USD 1.5 per transaction with immediate effect. The withdrawal fee remains USD 3 irrespective of the amount withdrawn.

Many of you have spoken, we have been listening and finally we are able to do something. We thank you most sincerely for having given us the opportunity to work on the modalities, which gave us the leeway to reduce the rates with the only string attached being more savings for you.

In another development, we have introduced an ePAY Community Forum on our website. Use this platform to share your ePAY experience with other community members, find solutions to common challenges, communicate to ePAY team, express yourself etc. We are committed to enhancing your experience at ePAY-KENYA.


Related Posts: 

How can I bring Paypal money into Kenya through E-pay 

How can I withdraw paypal money in Kenya