PayPal building the foundations for European growth
15 May 2007
As PayPal today lays out its growth plans in the online retail space, it is also announcing its new European headquarters in Luxembourg after having applied for, and been granted, a banking licence by the CSSF in Luxembourg effective 2 July 2007.
This move will allow the business to better meet the needs of its 35 million European customer accounts, as well as increase the number of retail websites where they can use their PayPal accounts. Under the new banking licence, PayPal can now establish local sales teams across Europe to serve the needs of internet retailers looking to benefit from PayPal’s broad base of payment methods and loyal customers.
According to Forrester Research, 23% of all European internet shoppers prefer paying with PayPal. These shoppers can currently find PayPal accepted at more than 100,000 websites in Europe and many more around the world.
PayPal offers consumers a secure way to pay by the method of their choice – credit or debit card, bank account, or PayPal balance – and offers retailers the opportunity to sell to buyers from every corner of Europe and beyond. PayPal’s new local sales teams will be on hand to meet the individual needs of both current and future retail accounts in major markets across Europe.
Brent Bellm added, “Establishing a new European headquarters in Luxembourg is a significant step in the next phase of PayPal’s European growth. With the recent independent survey indicating that almost a quarter of European shoppers prefer to use PayPal, we now want to help as many websites as possible to offer PayPal to their customers.
“By enabling consumers to pay with the method of their choice, without ever having to retype or share their financial information, retailers can improve their website sales. Many merchants have seen meaningful sales lift from adopting PayPal. Choice, convenience, and security underpin the PayPal service.”
In 2006, PayPal processed $8.4 billion of total payment volume in Europe. Thousands of European merchants accept PayPal today from their websites, including leading e-commerce sites such as Harrods, DHL, Meetic, Pixmania and Boots.
PayPal has local language websites in 14 countries including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK. To encourage local and cross border e-commerce, PayPal also supports payments from 103 markets in 17 currencies including Euros, Pounds Sterling, Czech Koruna, Danish Krone, Hungarian Forint, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Francs.
In the UK PayPal has over 15 million accounts, representing over a third of the adult population and over half of all internet users.
“We aspire to see PayPal accepted on virtually every retail website in Europe,” commented Brent Bellm, Head of Europe for PayPal and CEO of PayPal S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A.
