PayPal in Pakistan – Looks Possible, but it May Take Time!

Talk of PayPal entering Pakistan got buzzed up in previous 2 days, especially after some professionals got involved in discussion on TGP.

As always, Fouad Bajwa was amongst the campaigners, who announced that Mr. Ibrahim Qureshi (Director Raffles Pvt. Ltd) has promised to voice the need of PayPal in Pakistan duringObama’s presidential summit.

Discussion caught further attention when a member revealed that Paypal’s advance team recently visited Pakistan. He further said that PayPal is already engaged with local lawyers and other related institutes to start building their infrastructure to offer Paypal services in Pakistan.

This looked quite fascinating and importantly it made sense, particularly, after a recent announcement by PayPal to aggressively campaign in Asia (to be number one in region like they are in Europe and America) with an evident focus towards the mobile commerce along with traditional e-commerce services.

For the purpose, PayPal announced last month to double its employees from 1000 to over 2000 this year, with 100 new jobs alone for Singapore, company’s regional headquarter.

Though, PayPal has officially not authorized all this. Anuj Nayar, Director, Global Communications at PayPal in a communication with ProPakistani accepted that like always, PayPal is looking at ways to grow the business in Asia. However, he said that he has nothing in hands to announce about PayPal’s specific plans for Pakistan market.

A source at PayPal, who wanted to remain unnamed, told ProPakistani that Pakistan has some serious issues relating to its ecommerce infrastructure, payment gateways, which make it impossible for PayPal to step in to Pakistan. He said, PayPal’s usual feature of linking an email with customers’ bank account will never be possible in given banking infrastructure of Pakistan.

He admitted that PayPal has studied Pakistan, and recognizes the potential, however, stated problem is not in hands of PayPal.

In his opinion, PayPal may start operations while accepting limited banks, probably starting with Citibank (which has payment gateway), and then rolling out solution for other banks of the country.

Regulatory issues with State Bank of Pakistan are considered as hurdles too, but as stated earlier, there is no question of arguing over regulations when there is no infrastructure in place.

This is where our local banks and of course the government has to play some role. Payment gateways are a must have thing. We had reports of PTA working on it, but nothing concrete could be said on it, as of now.

So as a crux, one can safely say that its not PayPal who is not coming in Pakistan, its our banks who are not well equipped.

On a side note, as PayPal has plans to offer mobile banking solutions in the region, companies like EasyPaisa can come in, and join hands with PayPal (given that their banking partner– Tameer Bank, starts offering electronic payment solution).

But only time will tell that EasyPaisa and PayPal will work in hands or will become rivals.

Man Blames Google Street View for Robbery

A man's mountain bike--which was photographed on Google Street View--was stolen from his garage.

54-year-old Gordon Rayner of Brackendale Parade, Bradford, said Monday that his mountain bike was stolen thanks to Google Street View. After the robbery, Rayner was alerted to a photograph provided by Google's service which shows him standing next to his house in front of an open garage door. Inside the garage, viewers can clearly see his washing machine and a mountain bike that he no longer owns.

"When you look at the photograph, my face is blacked out, the windows of my house are blacked out, but because the garage door was left open, you can clearly see everything in there," he told The Telegraph. "I would argue that they should have blacked that out. It is just an invitation for any criminal to take what they like."

A Google spokesperson said that Street View has infiltrated 20 countries without any known increase in crime as a result. Apparently images of people and houses are only "rubbed out" by request. "The imagery on Street View is no different to what anyone could readily capture or see by traveling down the street themselves," the spokesperson said.

USB Stick Scans for Spouse's Cheating Chat Logs

Scan your hard drive for chat logs with this thumb drive.

Feeling a little suspicious that your "better half" may be talking love with someone else online? Do you think your employees are sneaking in chat time instead of working? Who the heck are the kids chatting with anyway? Paraben's Chat Stick may be your answer to all of those questions--or for at least those who can't figure out how to locate chat logs on their own.

The process is easy: simply insert this thumb drive into the PC and let it search the HDD for logs left behind by Yahoo, MSN 6.1, 6.2, 7.0, & 7.5, ICQ 1999-2003b, Trillian, Skype, Hello, & Miranda. The device even throws it all together into an ready-to-read report.

"The Chat Stick looks like any other USB drive," the company said. "No one would suspect the device can be used to see what they are saying with chat programs when they are using your computer." That is, of course, they can't read the words "chat stick" printed on the side of the device.

The Chat Stick has a pricetag of $99.99 (as does Paraben's Porn Detection Stick),

iPad Hacked, Proven to be Jailbreakable

That was quick.

It was only a matter of time until the iPad got into the hands of hackers, and we now have proof that Apple's latest pride and joy can also be jailbroken, freeing it from the clutches of the App Store.

Famed iPhone hacker George Hotz posted this image on his blog showing his jailbreaking utility blackra1n and the Cydia store for non-Apple approved apps.

Windows 7 Surpasses 10% of Internet User Share

Windows 7 faring far better than Windows Vista in early adoption.

Consumers and businesses are much warmer towards Windows 7 than they were towards Windows Vista – and the numbers are showing it.

According to data collected by Net Applications, relayed by Ars Technica, Windows 7 now has a greater than 10 percent market share amongst internet users. While this it still represents the smallest piece of the current Windows pie, historical comparisons show that the uptake of Windows 7 is more than twice of what Windows Vista did in its first five months of availability.

Now, it seems that businesses are starting to look into moving to Windows 7 as XP shows its age.