PayPal has pulled PayPal as an option for a majority of the Steam-using world following rumbles with PayPal’s acquiring banks. Any currency other than EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD, and USD are no longer able to use it as an option.
Valve addressed something many people noticed on its payment issues FAQ — the lack of PayPal as an option in many regions, such as the Philippines. This, of course wasn’t by choice, but rather PayPal notifying Steam that some of its acquiring banks have refused to allow Steam transactions.
“PayPal notified Valve that their acquiring bank for payment transactions in certain currencies was immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam. This affects Steam purchases using PayPal in currencies other than EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD.”
Digging deeper, Rock Paper Shotgun got confirmation it was related to the whole payment processor fiasco it’s still dealing with alongside other game platforms like Itch.io, which is looking into alternative processors. As you may remember, this all started due to Australian advocacy group, Collective Shout, calling on the platforms to crack down on certain NSFW games, but after that failed, it went after payment processors.
A petition has been floating around looking to reel things in and call on payment processors to stop hindering what legal purchases people can make while hiding behind a “brand risk” excuse.