For a long time we in South Africa have struggled to get ways for people from all over the world to pay us for our products or services we sell online. I do a lot of freelance software development for people outside of South Africa, and there has always been the problem of getting paid. Not because they didn’t want to pay, but because getting money into my account has always been so damn difficult.
The most popular and safest payment system in the world is Paypal. South Africans could always register a Paypal account, link their credit card to it, and then purchase items with it. However, you could not receive money to your Paypal account.
Most of the time it was just easier handling the project through RentACoder, but that meant paying them a commission on the money I received. There have been times when I couldn’t sign up for certain affiliate systems because they only supported Paypal.
A couple of weeks ago I read about FNB deciding to launch Paypal SA. I have been waiting in anticipation. Today, Paypal SA was finally launched. A few minutes after it being official, I logged into my FNB account and linked my account to Paypal. Within a few minutes my Paypal SA account was up and running.
Now I just need people to pay money into my account 
A few things worry me about this Paypal SA & FNB situation we find ourselves in. As with Eskom, Telkom, and various other monopolies we’ve seen in South Africa, having FNB with a monopoly of Paypal SA at this point in time can only lead to problems. Already FNB is running a campaign to get people to switch over to them by using this form. I have nothing against FNB, because for the most time I’ve had good service over the last 11 years, but it does make you wonder.
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