PayPal will shutter services in Turkey after denied operating license
PayPal will end operations in Turkey next week after a failure to obtain a new license for its payments services in the country. After June 6, Turkish PayPal users will still be able to log on to their account, but only to transfer their remaining balance to a local bank account.
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PayPal explained on its Turkish website that local financial regulator BDDK has denied PayPal's payments license, thereby forcing the company to comply with the instruction to discontinue its activities in the country.
BDDK has recently implemented a new policy that would have required PayPal to establish a local IT center in Turkey and store data within the country. According to PayPal, complying with the policy would have gone against how it operates its IT systems globally.
"We respect Turkey's desire to have information technology infrastructure deployed within its borders, however, PayPal utilizes a global payments platform that operates across more than 200 markets, rather than maintaining local payments platforms with dedicated technology infrastructure in any single country," the company said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft have faced similar government crackdowns over data management through the years. In 2014, Russia's parliament passed a bill that sought to bar Western technology firms from operating if they failed to store Russian data within the country.
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