In the ongoing saga of payment processors locking down payments, Steam has been hit by PayPal limiting purchases to only a select few currencies.
This has been going on for a little while now, with numerous posts across social media from users wondering why PayPal has been unavailable for them. Recently though, it seems the situation has only worsened as Valve have now put up a statement to clarify the situation when going to check out in a whole bunch of countries.
Valve have now added a statement to their purchasing FAQ that reads:
PayPal use on Steam is currently unavailable in my currency. Why?
In early July 2025, 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.
We hope to offer PayPal as an option for these currencies in the future but the timeline is uncertain. We are also evaluating adding additional payment methods on Steam for the customers affected by this.
In the meantime, please use one of our other current payment methods during checkout. If you can't use any of the available options, you can consider using a Steam Wallet code to add funds to your account.
We don't entirely know why this is happening though. It may be linked to the other payment issues that Steam and itch.io have been facing but it also might not be.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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F.Ultra 2 days ago
They're starting with smaller markets just to test the waters and see how Valve responds.For what reason? This is making Paypal loose money (the worst thing that can happen to a capitalistic company), Steam is handing out ungodly amounts of money to Paypal so loosing them as a customer is guaranteed not something that Paypal is planning.
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KROM 2 days ago
I miss the days when you could pay your games on steam with bitcoins. In hindsight, these were extremely expensive games I've bought, but hey, never look back.
Would solve the problem with the payment providers, although they'd need a new provider to cash out, I guess.
Would solve the problem with the payment providers, although they'd need a new provider to cash out, I guess.
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Highball 2 days ago
Paypal is enabling the PyUSD stablecoin on the Stellar network, next month. That should make settling transactions in any currency, extremely cheap. I bet that is what's going on.
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Pyrate 2 days ago
I don't see cryptocurrencies as the solution. They're too unstable, for one thing. If they ever become big enough to be a serious concern, the governments will find a way to take control of them.
The value fluctuation is a problem. But I don't believe the governments will manage to find a way to take control of some of the actually useful cryptocurrencies.
They're actually a pretty valid alternative to the shitstorm that is payment processors when it comes to control and sovereignty.
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Lanz 2 days ago
I'm glad I sold my PYPL calls back when it was in the $90 range. If their stablecoin doesn't take off, I really don't know what the future holds for this company.
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CyborgZeta 2 days ago
I consider using PayPal a safer alternative than paying directly with my card; along with Google Wallet on my phone. Until something better comes along, and has an equivalent to PayPal's Pay-in-4, then I will keep using PayPal.
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Adutchman a day ago
Thank you @Eike for mentioning Wero! I was just about to post how it is a shame we don't have a European-wide "Ideal"-like system but apperantly, we are getting one for at least a few countries. Let's hope they expand it to most if not all Euro countries. Amazing!
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omer666 a day ago
Unfortunately, Wero is far from ideal, as you need to use either Android with Google Play Store or an iPhone... As a GrapheneOS user not willing to install the Google Play Services, for the time being it is quite useless to me.
Let's hope they offer an open source implementation one day, in the mean time there is still no real alternative to Paypal, other than going credit card only - which I might end up doing.
Let's hope they offer an open source implementation one day, in the mean time there is still no real alternative to Paypal, other than going credit card only - which I might end up doing.
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Szkodnix a day ago
As I'm living in Poland we have our own payment options that are far more superior than Paypal, so it won't really hurt me, but still this starts to be ridiculous with those companies are making such decisions.
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Eike a day ago
Unfortunately, Wero is far from ideal, as you need to use either Android with Google Play Store or an iPhone...
I wasn't aware you cannot use it with a browser. :-(
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It would be so nice if all bigger banks would invest the time to come up with a solution that allows to cut out those payment-processor middle-men.
There are solutions, but those are all insular solutions... For instance, here in Austria, we have EPS. That's a Web-API that online-stores can use for payment processing with Austrian banks. It's the most user-friendly solution that I know, but it's limited to Austria...
Similarly, in the EU there would be SEPA Instant Transfer, which could be used for a payment processing solution. However, it's optional for banks to implement it, and again, it's limited to EU...
@soulsource well, In Poland I can use BLIK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik) which is then part of a wider EMPS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_Systems_Association) uniting similar solutions from other EU countris... Of course there is Wero from EPI, which is pushed hard now which is weird because it's supported only in 5 countries and a handful of bansk while EMPS solution is present in a dozen member states...
at any rate - it seems that a work on EU payment system is on the way and we will be able to dropp MC/Visa/PayPal and other crap in the future ;)
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Caldathras a day ago
@Pyrate
But I don't believe the governments will manage to find a way to take control of some of the actually useful cryptocurrencies.No? You might want to take a closer look at the actions of the Canadian government and the RCMP during the Freedom Convoy protest. That might give you an idea of where things could go ...
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One thing about modern crypto is that in practice, nobody is really using the blockchain for direct peer-to-peer transactions. I don't quite understand why, but I get the impression it sucks. Everyone uses these "exchange" things instead, which are kind of like an unregulated bank with no deposit insurance that is probably run by fraudsters, to keep their crypto "money" in and do transactions. And those are totally unprotected; people's investments can be and have been totally stolen, both when an exchange goes bust and the owners skip with everyone's dough, and just when hackers break the exchange's crappy security and steal it. Governments would have exactly zero difficulty doing anything they wanted with crypto "money" that's in a crypto exchange. So for most holders of crypto, the few theoretical advantages of crypto are completely negated by the actual way it's now used.
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A P2P payment option that I recently became aware of, for users in the USA, is Chime Pay Anyone.
I wonder if Steam, GOG, and others will at some point, officially allow purchases to be made with it.
I wonder if Steam, GOG, and others will at some point, officially allow purchases to be made with it.
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Paypal is really irrelevant these days, there is other ways if you are trying to avoid getting your card binned. Some banks provide virtual cards that can be used only one time.
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