PayPal No Longer Available for Steam Purchases Outside Major Currency Zones (rockpapershotgun.com)

(Thursday August 14, 2025 @05:26PM (msmash) from the payment-gateway-has-left-the-chat dept.)

PayPal payment processing has been [1]unavailable for Steam purchases in most countries since early July 2025 , Valve has confirmed, with functionality limited to transactions in U.S. dollars, Euros, British Pounds, Japanese Yen, Australian dollars, and Canadian dollars. In a statement to RockPaperShotgun, the company said one of PayPal's acquiring banks terminated all Steam transaction processing. Valve linked the bank's decision to [2]previous Mastercard-related content restrictions . The disruption began in early July 2025 when PayPal notified Valve of the immediate termination, leaving millions of users in affected regions without PayPal access and no certain timeline for resolution.

[1] https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/valve-explain-why-using-paypal-for-steam-purchases-isnt-currently-an-option-in-a-whole-bunch-of-countries

[2] https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/07/16/2034212/steam-now-bans-games-that-violate-the-rules-and-standards-of-payment-processors

Ouch (Score:2)

by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 )

As a user the Paypal seems horrible to me although it still has its place for making certain person to person transactions. I much prefer something like a Stripe enabled checkout for almost all websites. And still as for person to person transactions, I would also always prefer Cash App, Apple Pay, or Venmo (which is owned by Paypal). It just seems like Paypal should be put out to pasture.

Payment Processing is clearly an oligopoly... (Score:3)

by ffkom ( 3519199 )

... which needs to be replaced and regulated. Just like the printing of cash, it should not be left as a playground for companies and their arbitrary opinions on what should or should not be payable.

The problem here isn't payment processing (Score:2)

by rsilvergun ( 571051 )

The problem here is even MasterCard and Visa are afraid of the Republican party's religious crusade.

I can tell you right now but as long as they're not getting a lot of disputed transactions visa and MasterCard could care less about what you buy. And I seriously doubt there's been an increase in steam game disputes because valve just bans your account if you dispute a transaction, taking all your steam games with it.

The reason this is coming up is the same reason we have all those shitty laws where

Which bank (Score:2)

by dknj ( 441802 )

> In a statement to RockPaperShotgun, the company said one of PayPal's acquiring banks terminated all Steam transaction processing

Name the bank

you don't need paypal (Score:2)

by awwshit ( 6214476 )

I was a paypal user in the past. At some point they started not requiring me to sign-in every time, they started using cookies or some kind of browser fingerprint to decide it was okay to spend my money. I used an expletive with paypal support and paypal banned me. I never looked back and do not miss it.

Seriously, Fuck You Paypal. Fuck You for reducing security on my account. Fuck You for not fixing your broken security when I asked nicely the first time.