Paypal

 PayPal is a global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders. It is subject to the US economic sanction list, and subject to other rules and interventions required by US laws or government.

PayPal is an acquirer, performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received. The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type. In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies.

On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Scottsdale, Charlotte and Austin in the United States; Chennai in India; Dublin in Ireland; Kleinmachnow in Germany; and Tel Aviv in Israel. From July 2007, PayPal has operated across the European Union as a Luxembourg-based bank.

History

Beginnings

PayPal developed after Internet financial services company X.com acquired Confinity in March 2000. Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery and in 1999 launched a money transfer service called PayPal. The PayPal money-transfer system was only months old at the time X.com acquired Confinity but X.com founder Elon Musk felt it had a promising future. Musk and then president and CEO, Bill Harris, disagreed on this point and Harris left the company in May 2000. The X.com company was then renamed PayPal and expanded rapidly in 2001...