PayPal protection to drive Hong Kong merchant sales to new markets

PayPal, the world's leading online-payments service provider, expects to help Hong Kong and mainland merchants generate new business opportunities from cross-border trade by providing them with its new "Seller Protection" policy from next month.

"From October 11, we're going to protect merchants from unauthorised transactions and from items not being received by buyers," James Mirfin, PayPal's manager for Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan, said yesterday.

Mirfin said many businesses selling on the web were forced to dedicate a huge amount of time and money to tackling fraudulent transactions.

Californian-based PayPal, which has about 1 million online merchant users across the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, said it was adding the additional layer of security at no extra cost to sellers. They would not need to subscribe and there would be no cap on the amount of goods covered against fraud by PayPal buyers in any country.

"We want Hong Kong and mainland merchants to grow by helping them lower the risk associated with entering new markets," Mirfin said.

Seller Protection will be available next month to PayPal merchants in Australia, New Zealand, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The policy was initially launched in North America more than a decade ago and then in Europe.