Canadians can top up prepaid mobile phones for family in the Philippines with PayPal and TransferTo

PayPal today announced that they have teamed up with TransferTo, a global airtime remittance leader, to offer mobile airtime top-up in Canada. Without any transfer fees, Canadians can now use their PayPal account to instantly top up prepaid mobile phones of their relatives and friends in more than 100 countries including the Philippines.

All the Canadian-based sender needs is their PayPal account and the mobile number of the recipient, to top up a prepaid mobile phone using their smartphone, tablet or computer on www.paypal-mobiletopup.ca.

“Mobile phones help connect people with their communities, and give them access to education, employment, and essential medical and financial services,” said Cameron Schmidt, general manager, PayPal Canada. “With today’s announcement, Canadians can extend a lifeline to their grandmother who needs to frequently call her doctor in Manila or help their sister access the Internet from her mobile phone in Cebu City.”

Prepaid mobile phones dominate in the Philippines

According to Statistics Canada, one out of five people living in Canada were born abroad. A large number of Canadian immigrants are from the Philippinesi – a region that has heavy mobile phone usage. In 2011, more than 152,000 Canadians were born in the Philippines, representing 13.1 per cent of all immigrantsi. There are more mobile connections (114.6 million) in the Philippines than there are people (100.9 million)ii. Of those mobile phone connections, 95 per cent are prepaidii. Prepaid mobile phones registered with leading mobile phone service providers can now be topped up by Filipino Canadians with the new service announced today.

Supporting loved ones back home

“Every month, I send money to my mother back home in Manila to help her pay for her phone usage,” said Josephine Bungcayao, who immigrated to Canada from the Philippines. “I am so grateful PayPal now allows me a way to top up her prepaid phone so she can stay in touch with me and her family and friends.”

About PayPal

At PayPal, we put people at the centre of everything we do. Founded in 1998, we continue to be at the forefront of the digital payments revolution. Last year, we processed 4 billion payments, of which 1 billion were made on mobile devices. PayPal gives people better ways to connect to their money and to each other, helping them safely access and move their money and offering a choice of how they would like to pay or be paid. With our 169 million active customer accounts, we have created an open and secure payments ecosystem that people and businesses choose to securely transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices. PayPal is a truly global payments platform that is available to people in 203 markets, allowing customers to get paid in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds to their bank accounts in 57 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 26 currencies. For more information on PayPal, visithttps://ca.stories.paypal-corp.com. For PYPL financial information visit investor.paypal-corp.com.

About TransferTo

TransferTo is a leading global provider of mobile airtime remittance. For more details, please visit transfer-to.com.