LNP – PayPal may soon be a reality

The government has plans to bring PayPal service through India to Sri Lanka soon, senior ruling party sources said.

“We may discuss bringing PayPal out of India as an initial step, and get this facility into the country,” one source told The Sunday Times Business. He pointed out that Sri Lanka does not have good international payment channels and those such as PayPal have high transaction costs. He added that this division is being pondered in conjunction with facilitating digital nomads and getting them to have Sri Lanka as the preferred destination for work.

Another source said that the government will be recognising digital nomads, both local and foreign. Data-driven decision-making will be done by the government going forward, he added. NPP has laid out an ambitious agenda focused on digital transformation within the state sector, he added.  Key initiatives mentioned include the implementation of a digital identity system, improvements in land taxation processes, and enhancements to transportation systems.

He said the Ministry of Digital Economy will have five different agencies – the Information Communication Technology Agency, the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team, The Data Protection Authority, the Telecommunication Regulation Commission, and the two telcos -Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), and Mobitel. The government will not be selling SLT as it needs to have Internet connectivity for infrastructure, he added.

He said the four key areas that the Ministry of Digital Economy will focus on will be making the IT industry a US $5 billion industry in six years, implementing e-Governance to reduce corruption, increasing cashless transactions from $3.45 billion to $15 billion in six years, and increasing the IT workforce from 85,000 annually to 200,000 in six years.