Skrill to provide free payment services to Italians during lockdown

By Megha Bhattacharya

Online payments company Skrill today announced that it will be dropping fees and foreign exchange charges for users of Skrill Money Transfer, sending money in or out of Italy. The development comes as Italy began a new wave of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The service will remain free until December 3, 2020.

Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Skrill which is part of specialised payments platform Paysafe, said, “Italians are bracing themselves for the coming weeks as restrictions begin to tighten across the country. It has never been more important to protect our loved ones and support local businesses. We’re keen to ease the pressure that both businesses and consumers are experiencing at this time and ensure that as many funds as possible are going to the right place.”

Skrill was founded in 2001 and its money transfer service allows customers to send money from anywhere in the world directly to people in over 40 countries. Skrill enables businesses to process a range of different payment options such as cards, wallets, instant bank transfers, cash payments and other alternative payment methods via a single integration.

According to Skrill, it will also offer its wallet and Quick Checkout solution free of charge for two months to businesses in Italy using the service for the first time before the end of the year. The move is expected to particularly support the small businesses which have had to shift to a digital-only service during the lockdown. Any merchant which starts accepting Skrill as a payment method will have the option to be promoted to millions of Skrill users around the world.

Recently, Skrill announced a four-year partnership with AC Milan, thus becoming the prefered payments partner for the latter’s merchandise sales and will also work as a live payments option on its international online store. Skrill has also been integrated into Vivaticket, thus providing customers with the supplier’s digital wallet for buying match tickets and other experiences.