February has been a month when Paypal has given more heat to Indian webmasters than what their sweaters could have provided them with. To summarize the issues in decreasing order or precedence :

• FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - No one knew exactly what was happening. The only reliable source of information was the following Paypal blog post - https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/02/personal-payments-and-local-bank-transfers-in-india/  . Before one read that post, it was all hearsay depending on whom you asked.
• Other issue has been stoppage of withdrawals to India bank accounts. If you had to make payment to local guys, you sure would have felt it.
• And of course the last - personal payments being disallowed and the worst part of it - reversal of payments that took place before all this started.

So did anything positive come from all this? Well, atleast it provided me a reason to think about other Indian payment gateways which perhaps otherwise were in oblivion. So why we need to use Indian gateways.

1. Its all within India. Though geography does not matter in virtual world, but for banking, legal and other purposes it does matter.
2. We need to deal in INR currency. Why should our Indian  client pay in USD when on our sites we offer in INR.
3. Multiple payment options. In Indian context most important online options in decreasing order of relevance are - Debit Cards, Netbanking, Credit Cards.
   

So what are our options. While googling, I discovered this excellent piece of information - http://www.startupdunia.com/india-startups/comparison-of-payment-gateways-in-india-2087 .  On that page various options have been provided - CCAvenue, DirecPay, EBS, ABC Payments, HDFC, ICICI Payseal, Transecute. Out of this list I have dealt with CCAvenue only. Also I contacted EBS and was surely impressed with their demo implementation.

A one to one comparison with CCAvenue and EBS - CCAvenue starts from Rs.7500/- setup fee with 7% transaction rate on all kinds of transactions except net banking whereas EBS starts from Rs.6000/- with  6% flat transaction rate across all kind of transactions.

As far I am concerned, I feel an itch towards EBS.