Crypto trader Willy Woo on PayPal over invoice restriction

The recent buzz in the cryptocurrency sphere is Willy Woo on PayPal over the centralization of payment companies.

The popular cryptocurrency trader and co-founder of Hypersheet have criticized PayPal, a leading centralized remittance company, for restricting his company from making invoices over Know-Your-Customer (KYC) issues. It is cases like this that pinpoint Bitcoin as a better option. 

Willy Woo on PayPal against centralized remittance

In a series of tweets, Willy Woo on PayPal centralization issues disclosed that the remittance company blocked Willy’s company from making invoices after seven years of operations.

The decision was made regardless of the fact that Willy’s company usually pays about 6 percent of its international sales for invoicing offshore in fiat currency.

In order to invoice offshore in local currency, we paid PayPal 5%-6% of our International sales, it’s a small enterprise so it was the best we could find at that small scale (pillage the little guys).

While citing KYC as an issue, Willy Woo disclosed that the company’s process for Know-Your-Customer compliance is complex and requires a lot of time. “You block our company from invoicing after 7yrs, needing “KYC,” process being buggy, three weeks, and waiting.”

@PayPal with pals like you, who needs enemies. You block our company from invoicing after 7yrs, needing "KYC", process being buggy, 3 weeks and waiting.

Any cross-border remittance hanging off banking is broken. The economy is global. Please die banking. Buy #bitcoin.

— Willy Woo (@willywoo) May 25, 2020

Willy Woo’s complaint has got the Bitcoin community angry over the action of PayPal. A few others took the opportunity to lash out their frustrating experiences with the remittance company, and others like Revolut. 

Meanwhile, the companies have responded to the customers’ complaints and promise to help. Particularly on Willy Woo’s claim, PayPal responded to his tweet, asking him for more details about the issues, to provide support. 

Need for KYC compliance

KYC is mostly conversant in centralized entities dealing with financial services, as a way of preventing illegal activities like money laundering.

This also applies to centralized digital currency exchanges like Binance. Due to the anonymity with digital currencies, they adopt KYC rules to prevent terrorism financing, money laundering, and tracking stolen funds.