In a move that will affect hundreds of thousands of consumers and thousands of businesses, PayPal says that it is shutting down in Turkey next week after local regulators rejected its license applications.
In a notice on its site, the global giant says that from 6 June it will cease its activities in Turkey and that customers will not be able to send and receive money via their PayPal accounts. Balances can be moved to Turkish bank accounts.
PayPal says that it has been forced into suspending payment processing after its payment license application was denied by the financial regulator, BDDK.
The US-based company told TechCrunch that the license was denied because of a new rule in Turkey that requires IT systems to be based in the country.
"We respect Turkey’s desire to have information technology infrastructure deployed within its borders, however, PayPal utilises 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," PayPal told TechCrunch.
Despite this, the company says it is working towards obtaining the permits needed to start operating again, although it has provided no indication of when this might be.