PayPal has partnered up with airtime remittance company TransferTo to provide mobile airtime top up in Canada.
The deal will mean that Canadians will be able to use their PayPal accounts to top-up prepaid mobile phones of their relatives and friends that are registered with over 400 carriers in more than 100 countries. There will be no transfer fees.
All the sender needs is their own 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.
“According to Statistics Canada, one out of five people living in Canada were born abroad. A large number of Canadian immigrants are from the Philippines, India and Chinai – regions that have heavy mobile phone usage,” TransferTo says on its website.
In 2011, more than 152,000 Canadians were born in the Philippines, representing 13.1 per cent of all immigrants. The Philippines actually have more mobile connections (114.6m) than people (100.9m). Furthermore, of those mobile connections, 95 percent are prepaid.
In terms of country of birth among people who immigrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011, China and India are in second and third place respectively. China has 1.3 billion mobile connections of which just under 80 per cent are prepaid. India has 941 million mobile connections of which almost all (95 per cent) are prepaid.
Whitepapers
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