Stripe, the second most popular payment gateway service provider in the world, will be operational in Sri Lanka within the next two to three weeks, soon after receiving Central Bank approval, Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure Minister Harin Fernando said.
The minister said the agreement for Stripe to enter the Sri Lankan market has been finalised and was now waiting Central Bank approval.
"Small, medium and large scale businessmen of the country had to face various difficulties due to the absence of a payment gateway," Fernando said.
He said PayPal is the most popular online payment service in the world today.
One and half years ago, PayPal officials discussed with Sri Lankan authorities to enter the Sri Lankan market. But due to the various barriers, PayPal couldn't enter the Sri Lankan market," he said.
"PayPal has now become very popular around the world. The Sri Lankan market is too small for them to invest. During discussions held with them in January, PayPal heads said that investing in a country like Sri Lanka is a big loss for them since the number of businessmen who use a payment platform is very low in a country like Sri Lanka. They finally agreed to include Sri Lanka in the list of countries they will consider in 2017, " the minister said.
Fernando said around 27 percent of US population currently use Stripe as their payment gateway service provider.
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