Canadians Can Now Top up Prepaid Mobile Phones of Their Family in India With PayPal and TransferTo
TORONTO--PayPal today announced that they have teamed up with TransferTo, a global airtime remittance leader, to offer mobile airtime top-up in Canada. Without any transfer fees, Canadians can now use their PayPal account to instantly top up prepaid mobile phones of their relatives and friends in more than 100 countries including India. All the Canadian-based sender needs is their PayPal account and the mobile number of the recipient, to top up a prepaid mobile phone using their smartphone, tablet or computer on www.paypal-mobiletopup.ca.
“Mobile phones help connect people with their communities, and give them access to education, employment, and essential medical and financial services,” said Cameron Schmidt, general manager, PayPal Canada. “With today’s announcement, Canadians can extend a lifeline to their grandmother who needs to frequently call her doctor in Delhi or help their brother access the Internet from his mobile phone in Ludhiana.”
Prepaid mobile phones dominate in India
According to Statistics Canada, one out of five people living in Canada were born abroad. A large number of Canadian immigrants are from India1 – a region that has heavy mobile phone usage. India is the third leading country of birth among people who immigrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011i. There are 941 million mobile connections in India of which 95 per cent are prepaidii. With PayPal and TransferTo’s new service, Indo-Canadians can top up prepaid phones of their family and friends that are registered with leading Indian mobile phone service providers.
Supporting loved ones back home
“People come first for me. Staying connected with my aunts, uncles and relatives in India is an essential part of my life,” says basketball superfan, Nav Bhatia, a Toronto-based Sikh entrepreneur who moved to Canada 30 years ago. “In life, and in basketball – communication is the key to success. PayPal now offers me a way to top up my relatives’ prepaid mobile phones. Now, regardless of the distance, we can operate better as a team and feel closer as a family.”
About PayPal
At PayPal, we put people at the centre of everything we do. Founded in 1998, we continue to be at the forefront of the digital payments revolution. Last year, we processed 4 billion payments, of which 1 billion were made on mobile devices. PayPal gives people better ways to connect to their money and to each other, helping them safely access and move their money and offering a choice of how they would like to pay or be paid. With our 169 million active customer accounts, we have created an open and secure payments ecosystem that people and businesses choose to securely transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices. PayPal is a truly global payments platform that is available to people in 203 markets, allowing customers to get paid in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds to their bank accounts in 57 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 26 currencies. For more information on PayPal, visit https://ca.stories.paypal-corp.com. For PYPL financial information visit investor.paypal-corp.com.
About TransferTo
TransferTo is a leading global provider of mobile airtime remittance. For more details, please visit transfer-to.com.
1 Statistics Canada. 2011. Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity in Canada. Version updated January 2014. Ottawa, Canada. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm#a2 (July 14, 2015) ii GSMA Intelligence. 2014. Definitive data and analysis for the mobile industry. London, United Kingdom. https://gsmaintelligence.com/ (July 14, 2015)