PayPal keen to expand business in India
PayPal said it was keen to expand its business in India, having separated from e-commerce major, eBay on 18 July 2015. PayPal is evaluating options to bring the full suite of its payment offerings to India. Vikram Narayan, Managing Director and Country Manager at PayPal India said, "We are looking at our options to see what we can bring to India."
PayPal modus operandi
California-based PayPal operates as an acquirer (a financial medium that processes credit or debit payments on behalf of a merchant), performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. PayPal only charges sellers. PayPal offers a safer way to transact by keeping the user credit card and bank information confidential.
Early years of PayPal
PayPal was initially founded as Confinity in 1998 by Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery. In March 2000, Confinity merged with Elon Musk's X.com, an online banking company. In 2001, the company was renamed PayPal and went public with IPO in 2002. In July 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion.
PayPal Mafia
PayPal Mafia is a term used to indicate the group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and developed additional technology companies such as Tesla Motors, LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer.
PayPal's growth after eBay acquisition
After the acquisition, PayPal became the payment method used by majority of eBay users. By 2006, PayPal was in 103 markets and 10 currencies, with an annual revenue of $1.4 billion. In Nov 2008, eBay acuired 'Bill Me Later', a rival online payment service and combined it with PayPal. By 2009, Paypal operated in 24 currencies with an annual revenue of $2.8 billion.
PayPal targets mobile and micro payment systems
In 2010, PayPal became a payment option on Facebook Inc. It also launched apps for iPhone and Android powered devices. In 2011, PayPal acquired mobile payments startup Zong. The same year its mobile payments hit $4 billion. In 2013, it acquired IronPearl, a startup offering engagement software and Braintree, mobile-payment startup. By 2013, PayPal's mobile payments had touched $27 billion.
eBay unveils plans to spin off PayPal
eBay Inc. announced its plans to spin off the PayPal business division. With new competition in mobile payments from Apple and Google, both eBay and PayPal were facing threats to their core businesses. As independent companies, both eBay and PayPal will become flexible to pursue new market and partnership opportunities. In case of PayPal, it can partner with eBay's competitors freely after the spinoff.
PayPal in India
PayPal which opened its development facility at Chennai in 2007 had issues with RBI on transaction limits. As of March 2011, PayPal made changes to the user agreement for Indian users to comply with RBI regulations. The per-transaction limit, initially set at $500 was raised to $3000 per transaction in Oct 2011 and further increased to $10,000 in 2013.
